Bay City caught in fury of 1909 ‘Velasco’ hurricane

 Headlines from Houston Post over its news articles tied to 1909 hurricane impact in Matagorda County.
Fifty Per Cent of Business and Residence Section Damaged and Loss Will Total $250,000
Under Martial Law
Army of Constables Sworn In to Protect Property
But One Loss of Life
Infant of Mr. Calloway Was Crushed Under Falling Walls
The Town is in Need of Help
Carpenters Are Needed to Rebuild Razed Structures—-City Is in Darkness and Water Supply Has Been Cut Off

  Bay City, Texas, July 23 — With martial law proclaimed, the city in darkness, cut off without water supply and a lack of help to clear away the ruins, Bay City tonight is slowly recovering from the storm of yesterday which spent the fury upon this vicinity. 
  But one life was claimed by the hurricane - that of an infant of Mr. Calloway - while others suffered more or less painful injuries by flying glass or falling debris. 
  The loss will total $250,000, which includes the city damage alone, totaling 50 percent, estimates to the crop damage being impossible, although it is contended the damage to the rice crop, which is flooded in places, will not exceed 10 percent. 
  Bay City was apparently the center of the storm’s path. 
  The wind, which began rising about 9 o’clock in the morning, blew from the northwest, and rose steadily till, at 1:30, it was blowing seventy miles an hour.  
  At that hour it veered suddenly to due west and as suddenly increased in velocity to 80 miles an hour.  
  During the ensuing hours, the greatest amount of damage was done, for the storm blew with unabating fury, slowly shifting to the southwest, and seeming to seek out the weak points of buildings which had resisted its attack from other quarters. 
Torrential Rainfall 
  Accompanying the wind was an unprecedented downpour of rain, which flooded the streets and caused Cottonwood creek, which flows through the town, to overflow its banks.  
  Colorado River rose three feet in as many hours and rice farms along the prairie streams south of town were flooded. 
  In Bay City not a residence escaped damage, the extent ranging from injury from water to total destruction of the structures. 
  Fully 50 residences were torn to kindling wood, as many more were blown from their foundations and practically demolished, while every house that is not included in the above was either partially unroofed or its windows smashed and the interior ruined by water. 
  In the business section the havoc wrought was particularly costly. Five out of every six of the brick business houses around the square were more or less damaged, and the loss by merchants through damage by water will equal that sustained by the owners of the buildings. 
Property Loss $250,000 
  A conservative estimate of the property loss sustained in the town places the total at $250,000, though at this time it is impossible to detail the losses. Following is an incomplete list of the principal buildings injured?
The county jail, a brick structure, almost demolished.
The Baptist, Episcopal and Christian churches were totally destroyed and the Presbyterian and Catholic churches were blown from their foundations. 
  The Bay City high school building unroofed and much of the west wall blown down; badly damaged. 
  The Grand opera house building, a two-story brick, was completely wrecked. 
  The Union Warehouse and Elevator company warehouse has nothing but the floor left. 
  The Farmers Warehouse company warehouse is almost entirely tone. 
  The Bay City rice mill is badly damaged. This was the only loss that was covered by tornado insurance.
I. Ditch Heavy Loser
The brick buildings occupied by the postoffice
Huston’s drug store
Klein’s dry goods store
I. Ditch, dry goods
Badouh Bros., dry goods
W.A. Arnold, meat market
Louis Davis, bakery
W.E. Pill, pool room
Geo. F. Southwell, furniture
I.L. Pitluk, dry goods, and 
Gillett’s restaurant
lost one or more walls and many of them their roofs. 
  I. Ditch is the heaviest loser in this list, half the roof along the entire length of his large dry goods store caving in, destroying fully half of a $30,000 stock of goods, besides the damage to the buildings.    
  The building occupied by the Tribune Printing company was so baldly wrenched as to put the plant entirely out of commission till the structure can be repaired.
The building of the Crystal Ice Light company was wrecked, disabling the plant and adding to the public discomfort.
  The entire room of the city water works plant was demolished and the system otherwise injured.  
  No water has been served since yesterday noon, and it is likely that the mains will be empty for several days.
All smokestacks razed
  Of the dozen of more great smokestacks over the mills and pumping plants in Bay City and vicinity, not one is standing today, and meager reports from along the river indicate that a number of the pumping plants were otherwise badly torn up.
  The Sunset Route freight depot was unroofed and thousands of pounds of freight ruined by water.
  The Uneeda laundry buildings and machinery are a total loss, having been blown in to the bottom of the creek on the bank of which it stood.
  At Markham the Moore-Cortes rice warehouse was demolished and many residences and business houses damaged, while at Van Vleck six miles west of Bay City, only three houses were left standing. 
  At Palacios, Blessing and Midfields only slight damage was done, these points being to the south of the storm’s central path. 
  Nearly every farm house east and southeast of Bay City was either  totally wrecked, unroofed or blown from its foundation. 
Crop Losses Are Heavy 
  Crop losses are heavy, particularly among cotton and corn growers. Except in rare instances scarcely a bushel of corn will be saved by farmers along lower Caney, where corn is this year the chief crop and cotton is stripped of foliage, blooms and bolls.
  One item of no small loss is that sustained by fruit growers, the wind stripping orange and fig trees of the year’s growth of fruit, besides the hundreds of trees that are set back a year’s growth. 
  To this should be added the destruction of shade trees and shrubbery which was complete.
  Opinions differ as to the effect of the storm on the rice crop. 
  Fifty thousand acres of rice lay in the path of the hurricane, but it is probable that the entire loss of the growers will not exceed 10 per cent, the destruction by the wind being confined to the oldest rice in the fields, which is heading.  
  As little more than 5 percent of the crop is so far advanced and the younger plants are not injured by wind it is likely that the 10 percent estimate will cover the loss.
  Worse Than Storm of 1900
  Yesterday was Bay City’s first experience with the elements in a strenuous mood. 
  The town lay within the path of the storm of 1900, but citizens who went through that blow declare that it was a gentle zephyr compared with yesterday’s hurricane, but the destruction wrought will not compare with that suffered by towns in the tornado belt.  
  The people are not discouraged, and as fast as the debris can be cleared away the work of reconstruction will be carried on.  
  There is no want of means to finance the task ahead, the one great need being more men.  
  There is work here for hundreds of carpenters, masons and laborers, at top wages, and unless this need can be supplied from outside the greatest loss will accrue through delay in repairing the mills, warehouses and pumping plants, on which the one great industry of the community depends.
City Under Martial Law 
  No disturbance of any king has occurred. Early last night County Judge Holman placed the city under martial law and a number of special officers were sworn in. 
  The court house was converted into a temporary hospital, with County Physician Smith in charge, and rescue parties were sent out into every section of the city and neighboring rural precincts in search of those in need of help.  
  That only one slight wound was attended to by Dr. Smith proves the miraculous escape of the people from personal injury.  
  The only injuries reported were cuts due to broken glass from the large plate glass fronts of business houses, fully a score of which were shattered.
  The source of greatest deprivation is the want of electric power, water and telephone service.  
  Every telephone in the city is out of commission, and no wire, either telegraph or telephone, with the outside world has been working since noon yesterday.  
  The electric wiring of the city is practically a complete wreck and it will be several weeks before either the power or telephone service is fully restored.  
  It is not known to what extent the water works system is disabled, but the people are already feeling the absence of the water supply, and unless it is restored quickly sanitary conditions will become bad.
  Houston Post, July 23, 1909