Having two markedly different predictions about the path of a hurricane is common today. Cuban forecasters predicted the storm would travel west but the US Weather Bureau disagreed and predicted it would turn northeast and travel up the US coast. The Galveston Hurricane crossed over Cuba and entered the Florida Straits on Sept. After the storm hit, people in the rest of the country didn’t know what had happened until two days later. Some people in Galveston had heard there was a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, but they didn’t know how big it was, where it was or where it was going. The communication and transportation infrastructure we take for granted wasn’t in place in 1900. Why was the Galveston Hurricane so deadly? In a word – technology, or rather the lack of it. The difference between Harvey and the Galveston Hurricane Eleven people were killed.Ĩ0 bodies were found in the debris under this building. In August 1915 another Category 4 hurricane with 135 mph winds and a 21 foot storm surge hit the city. Raising the city and constructing the sea wall worked. One of the buildings raised was the 3,000-ton St. Jacks were used to raise more than 2,100 buildings as much as 17 feet, and sand was pumped from the bay to fill in the empty space. The entire city of Galveston is now higher than it was when the hurricane hit. Begun in 1902 and finished in 1963, the wall is about 10 miles long, 17 feet high at its highest point and 16 feet wide at the base. A sea wall was constructed to shield the city. They focused their attention on Houston after the discovery of oil in Beaumont in 1901 and the dredging of the Houston Ship Channel in 1909.Īlthough Galveston never fully recovered its commercial status, the city took extraordinary steps to protect itself from future storms. After the city was destroyed, investors concluded the storm threat was too great to warrant substantial reinvestment in Galveston. Before the hurricane hit, it was a booming shipping, banking and commercial center known as the Wall Street of the West. The city of Galveston is built around the natural harbor of Galveston Bay.
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