Book Review: Through a Night of Horrors ed. by C. E. Greene and S. H. Kelly

Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm edited by Casey Edward Greene and Shelly Henley Kelly

This compilation of eyewitness accounts shows the residents' reactions to the storm that struck Galveston Island in 1900. It's divided into letters, memoirs, and oral histories that have been transcribed. Interspersed with the letters are reports from National Weather Service meteorologist Isaac Cline who was stationed at Galveston through the storm. The texts give a very vivid portrait of what people went through. A common theme is the belief that they wouldn't make it through the night. Another striking reaction is in the aftermath when people were just numb to the horror of the situation--the thousands of dead, the wretched smell of mud and slime, the complete devastation in some areas. Survivors describe walls of debris, some two stories tall, caused by the storm surge that came in from both the north and south sides of the island. Most people had no sense of how bad it would get since they had lived through plenty of other "big blows." The book includes dozens of pictures of the devastation and maps to show where the various survivors waited out the storm. The end notes explain various details or discrepancies that arise from people misremembering what happened.

Recommended--this book is more for people interested in the history of the storm than for general readers.