Dr. Patricia Bixel

And so new houses were constructed.

Houses where they could be were repaired.

There was an orphanage that was set up for children that were found whose parents had been killed.

And the merchants got their businesses back up and going.

I guess one of the, if you can say there was a good thing about this, the major mercantile area of the island, the downtown and where the grocery stores were and the merchants were, was left relatively intact.

I mean, it was flooded, but the buildings remained.

They had not been destroyed.

This was the Strand area, which is near the port.

And so as the wharves are rebuilt, then you can get in the materials that you need.

You can get food coming in.

You can develop at least a semblance of what was a normal life.

Unfortunately, the race relations in Galveston probably got worse after the storm.

The city beforehand had a very strong and very vibrant Black community with a strong Black middle class.

There was a newspaper.

There were schools.

There were libraries.

There was a professional class.

And during the storm, everybody took care of everybody.

Blacks and whites stayed and took refuge in the same places.

They took care of each other.