Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1886 — HUNGRY AND PENNILESS. [ARTICLE]

HUNGRY AND PENNILESS.

The Survivors from the Great Flood in the Johnson Bay on District Appeal for Aid. Two Hundred and Fifty Persons Believed to Haye Perished in That Locality. [Beaumont (Texas) special.] Refugees from the flooded district about Sabine Pass continue to arrive on every small craft that comes up the river. It is estimated by persons here who have been over the scenes of devastation at Sabine Pass, Johnson's Bayou, and Taylor’s Bayou that the death-list will exceed 250 souls. Eighty-five corpses have been recovered and buried around Johnson’s Bayou, and fifty-four bodies thus far have been buried at Sabine, while sixty-six persons are still missing at Sabine, and these are, of course, dead, as it would be impossible for any human being to survive thus long in the swamp and lagoons without food or shelter. An examination of the country back of Sabine and immediately' in the vicinity of Beaumont shows that the salt water came back from the coast fully forty miles through the swamps, and hundreds ts thousands of acres are still submerged by water that was forced back and has no outlet. This fact makes the search for bodies very difficult. Carcasses of thousands of drowned cattle, hogs, horses, and fowl are strewn everywhere, and clouds of sea gulls and buzzards hover over the desolate country for an area of thirty square miles. It is known that the number of sufferers around Johnson's Bayou, who have lost everything, will reach 1,200, while the Sabine sufferers number 300, one half of whom are ' now in Beaumont. Parties who returned to-day from the Johnson Bayou district say that sixty persons are still missing there, and the searching parties have almost reached the conclusion that many of these missing were diowned and their bodies carried out sea by the receding waves. A correspondent who has just returned from Sabine Pass telegraphs from Orange that the’ turkey-bnzzards are soaring over Sabine for miles around on land and water. It is one vast charnel-house. The town is swept out of existence. What was a prosperous village when last Tuesday dawned is now the center of wreck aud desolation. There are 127 persons missing and supposed to be dead. Only about twenty-five bodies have thus far been recovered. There is not one sound house in the town of Sabine. The residences of Dr. Gail* land and Editor MeClanahan are the only ones that can be repaired. Every other house is an absolute wreck. This, in brief, is the story of the storm. Innumerable touching, heartrending incidents of the 6torm are related by the survivors. One house containing fourteen colored persons was seen to go down with a crash, and every one of them was lost. Incidents are related of husbands lashing wives aud children to floating wrecks and then seeing them killed by heavy logs being driven against them. The damage to property can only be estimated by the value of the town, for all is lost. The Sabine and East Texas Railroad track is washed out for a distance of ten miles. The trees have floated off, and the rails are twisted like wires, the effect of the great hurricane. Millions of dead fish were cast up by the waves, and thousands of birds also strew the ground. A woman in a perfectly nude state was found roaming around on the prairie yesterday, five miles from Sabine. She was demented, and could not tell her name. When the Government boat Penrose reached there Columbus Martie was found rowing around the delta looking for the bodies of his lamily. He said; "Myself, wife, and three children were clinging to a floating roof which was gradually breaking to pieces. One of the little ones dropped off and then another. 1 was bolding tho youngest, and soon my wile said, ‘Ooodby, husband; I am going.’ I could not reach her. The piece of the roof supporting her broke off and she sank before my eyes’. I held onto the youngest child, named Pearl, some time longer. The child, addressing me, said: ‘Papa, I’m tired; won’t you walk with me?’ The piece of the roof I was on now was crumbling to pieces. I told the little one to kiss me. She put both her little arms around my neck, gave me a big squeeze, and just then a wave dashed us off, aud I saw her no more. Great God! Why didn’t I go down, too?” He was pressed to go on board the Penrose, but refused, saying: “Here among these- lagoons are the bodies of my wife and children, and here will I stop until I can find them.” No tongue can tell how the people have suffered during the past few days. In many cases the dead ones are considered the lucky ones.