Storm of 1900

It is hard to fathom how many tens of thousands of lives were altered in the catastrophic Storm of 1900. We know upwards of 8,000 drowned that day. My great grandfather, Giovanni Bernardoni, was one of them. He and his family had found safety. However, Giovanni returned to help a friend escape. He was never heard of again. The Bernardoni family arc took a decidedly different turn as a result of that event. My great grandmother, Lucille Cariola Bernardoni, could not read or write. She had two, tiny children – my grandfather, John Stephen Bernardoni, and his sister, Viola. Lucille dusted furniture in a shop for $5 a week. She eked out a living by staying with one of her five sisters in a shotgun house on the Island. My grandfather worked as a young boy for the Galveston Daily News.

The Great Galveston Hurricane was a Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 145 miles per hour, which made landfall on September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, in the United States, leaving about 8,000 dead. It was the deadliest hurricane in US history.

The hurricane appears to have started as a tropical wave from West Africa, causing unsettled weather in the Caribbean, and emerging into the Florida Straits as a tropical storm on September 5th. Owing to contradictory forecasts, the people of Galveston felt no alarm until the official hurricane warning of September 7th. The next morning, a storm surge of 15 feet washed over the long, flat island-city which was only 8 feet above sea level, knocking buildings off their foundations and destroying over 3,600 homes.

The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston, as the hurricane discouraged potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. The whole island of Galveston was presently raised by 17 feet and a 10-mile sea-wall erected. – Wikipedia