Lessons from America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Galveston was one of the most prosperous cities in the United States. It boasted the first homes in Texas with electricity, streetlights at night, and telephone service. A major U.S. port at the time, its wealth earned it the nickname the “Wall Street of the South.” With that prosperity came hubris, though, and it cost Galveston almost everything.

On September 8, 1900, an unnamed Category 4 hurricane hit Galveston with 140 mile per hour winds, a torrential downpour, and a nearly 16-foot storm surge that submerged the island — which was only eight feet above sea level — under at least eight feet of water. According to Dr. Hal Needham, an extreme weather and disaster scientist based in Galveston, survivors described the city during the worst of it as rooftops poking through Gulf waters.

By most accounts, the hurricane killed between 6,000 to 8,000 people and destroyed roughly 40 percent of the city, making it the deadliest natural disaster in American history. However, the Great Storm also forced the U.S. Weather Bureau, the predecessor of the National Weather Service, to reevaluate the way it dealt with severe weather.

First, the hurricane forced the U.S. Weather Bureau to decentralize weather communications, according to Needham. Prior to Galveston, the bureau’s main office in Washington, D.C. evaluated weather reports and issued all storm warnings. When word came from Cuba of a storm heading toward the U.S., these officials predicted it would strike east of Galveston and warned that region.

As swells increased along Galveston’s beach and the tide rose despite an opposing wind, the bureau’s local chief meteorologist, Isaac Cline, who was on the ground in Galveston, realized the hurricane had changed course. By then, it was too late. With no way off Galveston Island and telegraph lines already down, Cline could only ask his brother to telephone Houston and have a telegraph company there wire Washington, D.C.

The storm cut off telephone communication immediately after, and Cline had to take action on his own. He raised the island’s hurricane flag and spread word for Galveston residents to prepare, but waiting to get the federal bureau’s permission to declare a warning cost time and probably lives, especially considering how quickly conditions changed.

In his official report filed on the storm, Cline described standing at his front door and the surge overwhelming him. He writes, “The water at this time was about eight inches deep in my residence, and the sudden rise of four feet brought it above my waist before I could change position.”

As a result of Cline’s report, the U.S. Weather Bureau recognized the importance of regional offices having the authority to issue warnings on their own.

Needham believes the disaster in Galveston also taught meteorologists to “look to your neighbors.” In 1875, a hurricane killed 176 people and destroyed 75 percent of all structures in Indianola, Texas, about 150 miles west of Galveston. Eleven years later, in 1886, a second hurricane came through and devastated the community so thoroughly, its citizens abandoned it.

“Galveston should have been terrified by this,” Needham says. “They should have thought if a hurricane like that hit our neighbor, it could happen to us.”

For the most part, they didn’t heed their neighbor’s fate. While some called for building a seawall to protect against a similar hurricane and its storm surge, Cline argued against it. In 1891, he wrote an article for the Galveston Daily News stating it be “absurd” to think a hurricane’s storm surge could substantially damage Galveston because the water would fill in behind the island and flood the Texas lowlands instead.

The Galveston hurricane not only proved Cline wrong but serves as a warning for communities even today. Needham points to the recent flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, following Hurricane Helene as an example. If Asheville residents had studied communities with similar geography, they would have taken note of Nelson County, Virginia, where in 1969, Hurricane Camille dropped 27 to 31 inches of rain in less than five hours in Nelson County, resulting in catastrophic landslides and more than 120 deaths. The massive flooding it sustained could happen in Asheville, too.

Asheville could have also learned from its own past storms. In 1916, Asheville sustained more than $3 million in damage following severe flooding from what remained of a tropical storm. Similarly, Galveston had endured prior, weaker hurricanes, but because Cline assured them a major surge couldn’t happen on the island, they hadn’t created any defenses against a such an event.

Galveston’s deadly storm was significant in another way, according to Needham. Images of the hurricane’s aftermath reached other parts of the country. For the first time, people could see with their own eyes how destructive a powerful hurricane could be. Even today, people may not realize that a storm surge can literally wash a house away until they witness it in a photograph or video.

“I go through neighborhoods before a hurricane and meet people who aren’t going to leave,” Needham says. “They tell me, ‘I’ve been here 30 years, and we’ve never had major damage.’ Then, I show them pictures of what a hurricane can do, and they change their mind.”

A house being swept away amid flooding in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene (Uploaded to YouTube by Associated Press)

The Galveston hurricane has a positive legacy, too. On the Galveston hurricane tour he leads, Needham shares the message of resilience in the face of natural disaster. Following the 1900 hurricane, Galveston didn’t just rebuild damaged structures or finally erect a seawall; it raised the entire island 12 feet, lifting whole buildings and utilities in the process.

“The fact that we’re still here is our finest moment,” Needham says. “You test someone’s character when they’ve been knocked down.”

Since 1900, technology has made it unlikely that the U.S. will experience a more deadly hurricane than the one Galveston experienced 125 years ago. Airplanes, radar, and satellites now track storms as they cross the oceans, and the National Weather Service can warn those in a hurricane’s path to prepare or evacuate days before it makes landfall.

While the changes in how we respond to hurricanes and severe weather save lives and property, our preparations aren’t foolproof. As Asheville Sheriff Quentin Miller told the Associated Press, “It’s not that we (were) not prepared, but this is going to another level…To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement.”