Lindsey Graham

So despite the fact that cremation was relatively unusual in America in 1900, and sacrilegious to many, the burial committee concluded that the only option left was to burn the bodies.

Crews began the work of building funeral pyres on the beaches, spaced a few hundred feet apart.

and for the next two months, the stench of burning bodies would permeate the city.

It was so strong that sailors could smell it fifty miles out at sea.

Eighteen-year-old P.G.

Tip, who led a crew of eight workers, later recalled, I had done so much burning and so much work that I just gave out.

I was sick for a long time.

I can still smell the dead and the burning bodies like burnt sugar.

The devastation proved too much for many, and in the days immediately following the hurricane, several survivors decided that rather than stay and face the horrors around them, they would escape the island altogether.

Grief, shock, fear of disease and food and housing shortages led some 6,000 people, mostly women and children, to flee Galveston by boat.

A relief worker in Texas City, just across the bay from Galveston, wrote, The boat came filled with refugees from the City of Doom, mothers whose babies had been torn from their arms, children whose parents were missing, fathers whose entire families were lost, a dazed and tearless throng.

Between the deaths and this mass exodus, Galveston lost one-third of its population.

But for those who remained, security soon became a major concern, too, as reports of looting emerged.

When the chief of police insisted that he needed more manpower than his 70 officers, Mayor Jones deputized white union workers, and on September 13th, the mayor called in the Texas militia, led by Brigadier General Thomas Scurry, who declared martial law.

Troops guarded warehouses and commissaries and set up tents for homeless women and children.

But despite the presence of this militia, sensationalist stories of looting continued to spread, with racist newspaper accounts adding fuel to the fire.

Several reports accused black men of mutilating corpses to steal jewelry.

On September 13th, an Alabama newspaper alleged that 50 black looters had been shot to death in Galveston, declaring the ghouls were holding an orgy over the dead, though there was no evidence that these incidents occurred.

But even as officials worked to improve sanitation and security on the island, food shortages emerged as the most pressing challenge.

And beyond rations, survivors also desperately needed clothing, bedding, furniture, and stoves.