1900 Galveston hurricane

The 1900 Galveston hurricane, also known as the Great Galveston hurricane and the Galveston Flood, and known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900 or the 1900 Storm, was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that became the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The strongest storm of the 1900 Atlantic hurricane season, it left between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000. Most of these deaths occurred in and near Galveston, Texas, after the storm surge inundated the coastline and the island city with 8 to 12 ft of water. As of 2025, it remains the fourth deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Fifi of 1974. In addition to the number killed, the storm destroyed about 7,000 buildings of all uses in Galveston, which included 3,636 demolished homes; every dwelling in the city suffered some degree of damage. The hurricane left approximately 10,000 people in the city homeless, out of a total population of fewer than 38,000. The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston. The hurricane alarmed potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. In response to the storm, three engineers designed and oversaw plans to raise the Gulf of Mexico shoreline of Galveston Island by and erect a seawall.
On August 27, 1900, a ship east of the Windward Islands detected a tropical cyclone, the first observed that year. The system proceeded to move steadily west-northwestward and entered the northeastern Caribbean on August 30. It made landfall in the Dominican Republic as a weak tropical storm on September 2. It weakened slightly while crossing Hispaniola, before re-emerging into the Caribbean Sea later that day. On September 3, the cyclone struck modern-day Santiago de Cuba Province and then slowly drifted along the southern coast of Cuba. Upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico on September 6, the storm strengthened into a hurricane. Significant intensification followed and the system peaked as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of on September 8. Early on the next day, it made landfall to the south of Houston. The cyclone weakened quickly after moving inland and fell to tropical storm intensity late on September 9. The storm turned east-northeastward and became extratropical over Iowa on September 11. The extratropical system strengthened while accelerating across the Midwestern United States, New England, and Eastern Canada before reaching the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on September 13. After striking Newfoundland later that day, the extratropical storm entered the far North Atlantic Ocean and weakened, with the remnants last observed near Iceland on September 15.
The great storm brought flooding and severe thunderstorms to portions of the Caribbean, especially Cuba and Jamaica. It is likely that much of South Florida experienced tropical storm-force winds, though mostly minor damage occurred. Hurricane-force winds and storm surge inundated portions of southern Louisiana, though the cyclone left no significant structural damage or fatalities in the state. The hurricane brought strong winds and storm surge to a large portion of east Texas, with Galveston suffering the brunt of the impact. Farther north, the storm and its remnants continued to produce heavy rains and gusty winds, which downed telegraph wires, signs, and trees in several states. Fatalities occurred in other states, including fifteen in Ohio, two in Illinois, two in New York, one in Massachusetts, and one in Missouri. Damage from the storm throughout the U.S. exceeded US$34 million. The remnants also brought severe impact to Canada. In Ontario, damage reached about C$1.35 million, with CAD$1 million to crops. The remnants of the hurricane caused at least 52 deaths – and possibly as many as 232 deaths – in Canada, mostly due to sunken vessels near Newfoundland and the French territory of Saint-Pierre. Throughout its path, the storm caused more than $35.4 million in damage.

Meteorological history

The storm is believed to have originated from a tropical wave which moved off the west coast of Africa and then emerged into the Atlantic Ocean. However, this is not completely certain because of the limited observational methods available to contemporary meteorologists, with ship reports being the only reliable tool for observing hurricanes. The first formal sighting of the tropical storm occurred on August 27, about east of the Windward Islands, when a ship encountered an area of unsettled weather. Over the next couple of days, the system moved west-northwestwards and is thought to have maintained its intensity as a weak tropical storm, before it passed through the Leeward Islands and entered the Caribbean Sea on August 31.
On September 1, Father Reese Gangoite, the director of the Belen College Observatory in Havana, Cuba, noted that the storm was in its formative stages, with only vague indications of a small tropical cyclone to the southwest of Saint Croix. During that day, the system passed to the south of Puerto Rico before it made landfall near Baní, Dominican Republic, early on September 2. Moving west-northwestward, the storm crossed the island of Hispaniola and entered into the Windward Passage near Saint-Marc, Haiti, several hours later. The system made landfall on Cuba near Santiago de Cuba during September 3, before it moved slowly west-northwestward across the island and emerged into Straits of Florida as a tropical storm on September 5. As the system emerged into the Straits of Florida, Gangoite observed a large, persistent halo around the moon, while the sky turned deep red and cirrus clouds moved northwards. This indicated to him that the tropical storm had intensified and that the prevailing winds were moving the system towards the coast of Texas. However, the United States Weather Bureau disagreed with this forecast, as they expected the system to recurve and make landfall in Florida before impacting the American East Coast. An area of high pressure over the Florida Keys ultimately moved the system northwestward into the Gulf of Mexico, where favorable conditions such as warm sea surface temperatures allowed the storm to intensify into a hurricane.
In the eastern Gulf of Mexico on September 6, the ship Louisiana encountered the hurricane, and its captain, T. P. Halsey, estimated that the system had wind speeds of. The hurricane continued to strengthen significantly while heading west-northwestward across the Gulf. On September 7, the system reached its peak intensity with estimated sustained wind speeds of, which made it equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson scale. That day, the Weather Bureau realized that the storm was continuing west-northwestward across the Gulf of Mexico, rather than turning northward over Florida and the East Coast as it had predicted. However, Weather Bureau director Willis Luther Moore insisted that the cyclone was not of hurricane intensity. The hurricane weakened slightly on September 8 and recurved to the northwest as it approached the coast of Texas, while the Weather Bureau office in Galveston began observing hurricane-force winds by 22:00 UTC.
The cyclone made landfall around 8:00 p.m CST on September 8 to the south of Houston as a Category 4 hurricane. While crossing Galveston Island and West Bay, the eye passed southwest of the city of Galveston. The hurricane quickly weakened after moving inland, falling to tropical storm intensity late on September 9. The storm lost tropical characteristics and transitioned into an extratropical cyclone over Iowa by 12:00 UTC on September 11. Moving rapidly east-northeastward, the extratropical system re-intensified, becoming the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane over Ontario on September 12. The extratropical remnants reached the Gulf of Saint Lawrence early the following day. After crossing Newfoundland and entering the far northern Atlantic hours later, the remnants of the hurricane weakened and were last noted near Iceland on September 15 where the storm finally dissipated.

Background

The city of Galveston, formally founded in 1839, had weathered numerous storms, all of which the city survived with ease. In the late 19th century, Galveston was a boomtown with the population increasing from 29,084 people in 1890 to 37,788 people in 1900. The city was the fourth largest municipality in terms of population in the state of Texas in 1900, and had among the highest per capita income rates in the U.S. Galveston had many ornate business buildings in a downtown section called The Strand, which was considered the "Wall Street of the Southwest". The city's position on the natural harbor of Galveston Bay along the Gulf of Mexico made it the center of trade in Texas, and one of the busiest ports in the nation. With this prosperity came a sense of complacency, as residents believed any future storms would be no worse than previous events. In fact, Isaac Cline, director of the Weather Bureau's Galveston office, wrote an 1891 article in the Galveston Daily News that it would be impossible for a hurricane of significant strength to strike Galveston Island.
A quarter of a century earlier, the nearby town of Indianola on Matagorda Bay was undergoing its own boom. Then in 1875, a powerful hurricane blew through and nearly destroyed the town. Indianola was rebuilt, though a second hurricane in 1886 caused most of the town's residents to move elsewhere. Many Galveston residents took the destruction of Indianola as an object lesson on the threat posed by hurricanes. Galveston is built on a low, flat island, little more than a large sandbar along the Gulf Coast. These residents proposed a seawall be constructed to protect the city, but the majority of the population and the city's government dismissed their concerns. Cline further argued in his 1891 article in the Daily News that a seawall was not needed due to his belief that a strong hurricane would not strike the island. As a result, the seawall was not built, and development activities on the island actively increased its vulnerability to storms. Sand dunes along the shore were cut down to fill low areas in the city, removing what little barrier there was to the Gulf of Mexico.