Lindsey Graham

In September 1900, a Black reverend lodged a complaint that White ward volunteers were discriminating against Black survivors, giving the best donated goods to White residents in the morning and reserving poor-quality leftovers for Black residents in the afternoon.

Clara Barton stepped in as mediator, working with the respected principal of Galveston's All-Black Central High School to form a Black Red Cross Auxiliary so that Black relief workers could distribute aid to the Black community.

By late September, Barton turned her focus to the problem of housing.

For weeks, homeless families camped out in damaged public buildings, churches, and overcrowded homes, or fled to stay with relatives when surviving structures proved uninhabitable.

Many survivors scavenged materials to construct shacks for themselves or pitched donated tents on their empty lots.

Hundreds more camped in what became known as the White City on the Beach, a miles-long temporary settlement erected with surplus Army canvas tents.

But with fall and winter approaching, Barton worried about how the people living in these tents would survive the colder months ahead.

So she started a letter-writing campaign to urge Red Cross supporters to provide money for building materials and labor.

She also asked the Central Relief Committee to develop a comprehensive rebuilding plan.

A reconstruction committee would then spend roughly $450,000 rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes, mostly modest three-room cottages.

However, the people of Galveston knew that these efforts would go to waste if they could not revive the local economy, so they immediately began working to restore crucial city infrastructure and transportation lines.

The downtown business corridor had reopened early on, with stores offering damaged goods at reduced prices, while Western Union employees quickly restrung telegraph wires, and workers labored around the clock to restore city utilities.

Within a week of the storm, banks reopened, streetcars resumed service, and Galveston newspapers began publishing again.

Meanwhile, neighbors improvised, pooling whatever resources they had to rebuild their communities and daily routines.

Surviving houses of worship opened their doors not only to their own congregations, but to displaced worshipers across the city.

One Baptist woman recalled with gratitude how a Jewish synagogue welcomed her congregation after the hurricane swept away their church buildings and 50 of their members.

While still grieving the loss of his wife, Isaac Klein returned to work at the Galveston Weather Bureau.

And on September 28th, he read a five-page letter in the Houston Post written by U.S.

Weather Bureau Chief Willis Moore, in which Moore falsely claimed that Galveston had received hurricane warnings prior to the storm.

He also heavily exaggerated Klein's heroism on September 8th, claiming that after all communication lines failed, Klein had fought his way through the raging wind and rising water to a remote telephone station at the end of a bridge.