Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 8, "No pen can describe," consists of two parts, the first detailing at length how reporters, photographers, and artists deal with the drama of the great wave and the horrid aftermath, with imagination and emotion making up lacking facts. It serves in a sense as documentation of the sources upon which this book is based. Part 2 deals with the unprecedented outpouring of charity the journalists' words and images inspire.

Henry S. Brown of the Philadelphia Press catches a westbound train after word of the flood comes in, but gets no further than Harrisburg. He plots a roundabout route by rail and horse teams that in 28 hours brings him to the stricken city, only to meet colleague F. Jennings Crute, who has ridden the rails across New York to Cleveland and doubled back. They join the rest of the reporters filing stories...