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THE GALVESTON FLOOD

Disaster

On 7 September 1900 hurricane-force winds and rain whipped the states on the western end of the Gulf of Mexico. A storm surge smashed into the city of Galveston, Texas, on the north end of Galveston Island. The four bridges connecting it to the mainland were swept away; most of the city's buildings were destroyed; and five thousand of its forty thousand residents died. Survivors waited through the night on rooftops. The rest of the world waited days for news of Galveston's fate, so cut off was the city and the region by severed telegraph lines, flooded roads, and impassable railroad tracks. Militiamen with bayonets patrolled the streets to keep scavengers and newspaper reporters away.

Annie Laurie to the Rescue

Winifred Black, a reporter for the Denver Post and special contributor to the Hearst papers who wrote under the name Annie Laurie, was the first reporter to arrive on the scene. Dressed as a boy, she sneaked onto the boat that met the relief trains coming from Houston. After twenty-four hours she filed stories for the Hearst syndicate describing the terrible stench of decaying bodies and the need for disinfectant. "In pity's name, in America's name, do not delay one single instant. Send this help quickly or it will be too late!" She related the story of a man who floated all night on a piece of his roof with his wife and mother, kissing them good-bye because he did not think he could hold on. When he awoke, he was alone on the raft and did not know when they had died. She described vast pyres where thousands of bodies were cremated. The tiniest details moved her: a baby's shoe, a piece of a woman's dress, letters.

Hearst Promotes Charity

The staff and readers of Hearst's San Francisco Examiner, Chicago American, and New York Journal, where Laurie's stories appeared, hurried to fill trains with supplies, relief workers, and money. The three trains raced across the country to see which would arrive first, the name Hearst blazing in banners on their sides. In New York the publisher himself organized a charity bazaar at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and several theatrical benefits featuring Broadway stars. The Journal carried a daily list of contributions led by Hearst's own __BODY__,000. Critics charged that the good Hearst did in Galveston was tainted by the magnate's shameless self-promotion: he had his eye, as many Americans knew, on the White House.

Relief

With the help of Galveston's police chief, Annie Laurie took over a school building that had survived the flood and turned it into a hospital, quickly spending the initial $60,000 Hearst forwarded to her on blankets, cots, pillows, and cookstoves. Her stories eventually raised more than $350,000 in contributions from Hearst readers. She also found permanent homes for forty-eight orphans, proving her talent as a tireless organizer as well as a vivid and stirring reporter.