Isaac's Storm (32 page)

"It
was
the
poor
soldiers,"
she
learned
the
next
morning,
"crying
for
help."

As
THE
DAY
progressed,
Isaac
Cline
grew
increasingly
concerned
about
the
storm.
He
only
had
to
look
out
his
office
window
to
see
that
the
strong
north
wind
had
pushed
the
waters
of
Galveston
Bay
over
the
wharf
and
into
the
streets
of
the
city.
By
afternoon,
the
Gulf
and
the
bay
seemed
about
to
converge.
Clearly
something
extraordinary
was
happening
—
and
yet
there
had
been
so
little
clear
warning.
Friday
night
the
barometer
had
actually
risen,
and
he
had
seen
nothing
of
the
brick-red
sky
that
was
thought
to
herald
a
hurricane.
The
only
true
sign
of
danger
lay
in
the
great
swells,
which
in
the
few
hours
since
his
dawn
visit
to
the
beach
had
grown
to
even
greater
size.

Now
the
telephone
at
the
station
rang
incessandy.
He
heard
fear
in
the
voices
of
the
men
and
women
at
the
other
end.
They
told
him
fantastic
stories
about
water
up
to
their
necks,
waves
striking
their
front
doors,
the
collapse
of
the
big
bathhouses
along
the
beach,
and
a
strange
inundation
of
tiny
frogs
—
thousands
of
them.
And
he
had
seen
the
remains
of
Ritter's
with
his
own
eyes.

"The
storm
swells
were
increasing
in
magnitude
and
frequency
and
were
building
up
a
storm
tide
which
told
me
as
plainly
as
though
it
was
a
written
message
that
great
danger
was
approaching,"
he
wrote
later.
He
drove,
he
claimed,
from
one
end
of
the
beach
to
the
other,
shouting
a
warning
to
everyone
he
saw.
"I
warned
the
people
that
great
danger
threatened
them,
and
advised
some
6,000
persons,
from
the
interior
of
the
State,
who
were
summering
along
the
beach
to
go
home
immediately.
I
warned
persons
residing
within
three
blocks
of
the
beach
to
move
to
the
higher
portions
of
the
city,
that
their
houses
would
be
undermined
by
the
ebb
and
flow
of
the
increasing
storm
tide
and
would
be
washed
away.
Summer
visitors
went
home,
and
residents
moved
out
in
accordance
with
the
advice
given
them.
Some
6,000
lives
were
saved
by
my
advice
and
warnings."

His
story,
however,
does
not
mesh
well
with
other
accounts
of
the
day.
Of
the
hundreds
of
reminiscences
in
the
archives
of
Galveston's
Rosenberg
Library,
none
mentions
Isaac
Cline
aboard
his
sulky
sounding
the
alarm.
And
there
simply
were
not
enough
locomotives
or
coaches
to
accommodate
the
crush
of
refugees
that,
if
his
account
were
correct,
would
have
sought
to
flee
the
city
throughout
the
morning.
The
last
train
to
arrive
was
Kellogg's
GH&H
train
from
Houston,
at
1:15
P.M.;
it
could
not
have
survived
the
journey
back
to
the
mainland.
R.
Wilbur
Goodman
took
the
last
trolley
of
the
day
toward
the
beach
and
heard
no
talk
of
the
storm
among
his
fellow
passengers.
Many
people
did
eventually
leave
their
homes,
but
only
after
water
began
flowing
over
the
wood
planks
of
their
galleries
and
under
their
front
doors.
By
2:30
P.M.,
Galveston
time
—
the
time
Isaac
says
he
recognized
"that
an
awful
disaster
was
upon
us"
—
the
streets
within
three
blocks
of
the
beach
were
already
impassable.

Isaac's
and
Joseph's
accounts
diverged
in
subde
ways
that
seemed
to
shed
light
on
their
later
estrangement.

Isaac
reported
that
at
2:30
P.M.
he
sat
down
to
write
an
urgent
cable
to
Willis
Moore,
"advising
him
of
the
terrible
situation,
and
staffing]
that
the
city
was
fast
going
under
water,
that
great
loss
of
life
must
result,
and
stress[ing]
the
need
for
relief."
He
gave
this
to
"my
assistant,"
Joseph
L.
Cline,
to
carry
to
the
telegraph
office.
"Having
been
on
duty
since
5
a.m.
[four
o'clock
Galveston
time],
after
giving
this
message
to
the
observer,
I
went
home
to
lunch."

Joseph
gave
himself
a
less
passive
role.
"At
3:30
p.m.
[2:30
Galveston
time]
I
took
a
special
observation
to
be
wired
to
the
Chief
at
Washington.
The
message
indicated
that
the
hurricane's
intensity
was
going
to
be
more
severe
than
was
at
first
anticipated.
About
this
time,
my
brother
paused
in
his
warnings
long
enough
to
telephone
from
the
beach
the
following
fact,
which
I
added
to
the
message:
'Gulf
rising
rapidly;
half
the
city
now
under
water.'
Had
I
known
the
whole
picture,
I
could
have
altered
the
message
at
the
time
of
its
filing
to
read,
'Entire
city
under
water.'"

Joseph
enciphered
the
message,
then
fought
his
way
to
the
Strand.
"The
entire
pavement
of
wooden
blocks
throughout
the
business
section
was
afloat
and
up
to
the
level
of
the
raised
sidewalks,
bobbing
up
and
down
like
a
carpet
of
corks."
In
places,
he
said,
the
water
was
knee-deep.
He
went
first
to
the
Western
Union
office,
but
learned
its
wires
had
been
down
for
two
hours.
He
walked
to
the
nearby
Postal
Telegraph
office,
and
heard
the
same
news.
"I
made
my
way
painfully
back
again,
through
the
top
crust
of
wooden
blocks,
to
the
weather
bureau."

It
suddenly
dawned
on
him
to
use
the
telephone.
He
called
the
telephone
company
and
asked
for
a
direct
long-distance
connection
to
the
Western
Union
office
in
Houston,
"at
the
utmost
speed."

The
operator
refused.
She
had
four
thousand
calls
ahead
of
his,
she
told
him.
He
tried
to
convince
her
this
was
urgent
government
business.
She
stood
her
ground.

Joseph
asked
for
the
manager,
Tom
Powell,
whom
he
knew.
Joseph
explained
the
situation
and
its
urgency.
But
why,
if
Isaac
had
so
widely
sounded
the
alarm,
did
Joseph
have
to
explain
anything
at
all?
And
why
did
the
operator
refuse
his
request?

Powell
came
through.
Joseph
got
his
direct
connection
to
Western
Union
in
Houston.
He
dictated
the
telegram.
It
was
truly
a
transitional
moment:
There
he
was,
at
the
cusp
of
the
twentieth
century,
using
the
telephone
to
send
a
telegram.

He
told
Western
Union
the
message
was
to
be
kept
absolutely
confidential.
"The
two
cities,"Joseph
explained,
"were
traditional
rivals."
He
did
not
want
Houston
to
learn
yet
that
its
arch-rival
in
the
race
for
deep-water
dominance
now
lay
under
the
converging
waters
of
the
Gulf
and
bay.
"I
explained
that
the
facts
in
the
message
were
the
property
of
the
Weather
Bureau
and
of
the
Government,
and
were
not
for
public
release
except
from
Washington."

Isaac,
meanwhile,
was
on
his
way
home.
Along
the
way
he
encountered
Anthony
Credo,
who
lived
near
the
beach
in
a
big
two-story
house
with
his
wife
and
nine
children.

Credo
had
eleven
children
in
all,
but
two
daughters
now
had
families
of
their
own
and
lived
elsewhere.
Neither
was
at
the
Credo
house
on
Saturday.
A
son,
William,
was
also
absent,
spending
the
day
at
the
home
of
his
fiancee.

Credo
was
headed
for
his
own
home,
and
walked
part
of
the
way
alongside
Isaac.

Isaac
seemed
worried.
He
told
Credo
he
was
afraid
he
had
underestimated
the
storm.
"Dr.
Cline
told
Papa
that
this
storm
would
be
more
dangerous
than
any
of
the
others
we
had
had
before,"
said
Credo's
daughter
Ruby.
"Dr.
Cline
didn't
like
the
way
the
water
was
rising;
the
winds
from
the
northeast
had
increased
in
a
matter
of
minutes."

Credo
walked
quickly
to
his
house
and
gathered
his
family
together.
His
conversation
with
Isaac
had
left
him
deeply
troubled.
He
told
his
family
to
get
ready
to
leave
as
quickly
as
possible.
Then
he
and
his
wife
did
something
that
to
Ruby's
young
eyes
was
positively
extraordinary:
They
began
chopping
holes
into
the
parlor
floor.

SOON
ISAAC'S
ROUTE
took
him
past
the
home
of
Judson
Palmer,
the
YMCA
secretary.
Just
then
Palmer
happened
to
be
looking
out
the
door
to
see
how
much
higher
the
waters
had
risen.

Palmer
hailed
Isaac,
who
waded
toward
him.
Apparently
Palmer
was
having
second
thoughts
about
staying
in
the
house.
He
asked
Isaac
his
opinion
as
to
the
safest
course
—
move
downtown,
or
stay?

Stay
put,
Isaac
said.
He
told
Palmer
his
house
seemed
well
built
and
sturdy
and
would
do
fine
and
that
his
family
would
be
safer
there
than
anywhere
else.
Isaac
said
he
was
on
his
way
to
his
own
house,
and
planned
to
stay
there
until
the
storm
was
over.

For
Palmer,
this
must
have
been
especially
reassuring.

Later,
with
mournful
clarity,
Isaac
wrote
in
his
official
report,
"Those
who
lived
in
large
strong
buildings,
a
few
blocks
from
the
beach,
one
of
whom
was
the
writer
of
this
report,
thought
they
could
weather
the
wind
and
tide."

But
Isaac
wasn't
alone
in
seeing
his
own
house
as
a
fortress.
Appar-endy
the
Cline
house
was
considered
among
the
staunchest
in
the
neighborhood.
"Many
went
to
his
house
for
safety
as
it
was
the
strongest-built
of
any
in
that
part
of
town,"
John
Blagden
said.

By
the
time
Isaac
got
home,
the
water
in
his
yard
was
waist
deep.
And
wherever
an
object
protruded
from
the
water,
there
were
toads.
Tiny
ones.
Dozens.
"Every
little
board,
every
little
splinter,
had
about
twenty
or
fifty
toad-frogs
on
it,"
one
witness
remembered.
"I
never
seen
so
many
toad-frogs
in
all
the
days
of
my
life."