Part IV: Cataclysm Summary and Analysis

A telegram was sent from the Houston weather station to the Chief of the US Weather Bureau in Washington, DC, informing him that they had lost all contact with the Galveston office.

With each step August Rollfing took, the water was deeper. He was making his way from his home back downtown. He hired a driver and buggy with orders to pick up his wife and children and take them to his mother's house in the West End where they would be safer. Louisa was thrilled when the buggy arrived. It was a slow and dangerous ride—the streets were flooded and electric wires were down everywhere. Judging from the debris, whole houses had been blown apart. Louisa and her children wound up at her sister's house which was in an area that hadn't been hit...