Galveston Flood of 1900 lesson

Oh gosh, almost 10 years ago, because Jeff and I went there for our 10th anniversary, we stayed in the Hotel Galvez in Galveston. It’s the oldest hotel in Galveston, and in the basement it has a museum to the history of the island, AND a history of the Galveston Flood of 1900. I stored this information away for when we studied Texas history in our history lessons, and pulled it back out when we studied Texas history in 7th grade.

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First let’s look at what happened in the Galveston Flood of 1900

The ironic thing about this particular news piece, shortly after it aired Hurricane Harvey hit Galveston and Houston and created insanely large amounts of flooding. The only reason Hurricane Harvey didn’t cause as much damage was in large part because of the actions taken by the people of Galveston in 1900.

This video is particularly useful because it includes some actual footage from after the hurricane using this new-fangled moving pictures technology, and some recreations from shortly after the flooding (notice the Model-T style cars).

The impressive thing about the Galveston Flood of 1900 isn’t the flood, it’s Galveston’s response.

What did Galveston do after the flood of 1900?

Most of the city was destroyed by the hurricane and resulting flooding afterwards (if you didn’t watch the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 video, you really should). Prior to the flooding Galveston was THE tourist destination for the rich and well to do. It was also the shipping destination West of the Mississippi because it had a relatively great harbor, and at that time Houston’s harbor was not usable for ships the way it is now.

Galveston had money, and they put that money to good use.

First they RAISED the height of the island by 10 feet. Yes, you read that right. They formed a giant concrete sea wall.

Now the Southern-most road on Galveston is named Seawall Blvd., named after the seawall they built to raise the island. It’s a little harder to flood when the city is 10-18 feet taller.

Then they built sea-breaks. Giant blocks of granite break up waves coming towards the island, to stop the city from being overwhlemed by waves.

All in all, pretty impressive to get done in 1900.

Galveston Flood of 1900 history lesson

We’ve visited Galveston several times over the years, and so they’ve heard all about the flood, but we watched the videos up above, and then I said, “How would you flood proof the island?”

They pulled out our LEGOs and started building. They knew from our multiple visits to Galveston, a common way to deal with the flooding was to put homes on pillars, and raise the whole house up 10-20 feet. If you raise the house generally a good 10-20 feet, it’s not going to get flooded as much.

After they’d created the perfect city to withstand flooding, we headed down to my bathroom, stuck their creation in the bathtub, and started filling the tub.

It took some time for the bath tub to fill up enough, and once it was, they watched as the water flowed under the pillars they’d created, and the LEGO city was heavy enough it did not start floating as the tub filled up (I was a little worried about that).

Resources to use with your Galveston Flood of 1900 history lesson

Here are 3 books to read:

• Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History– Jeff loves this full length novel, but it’s also emotionally draining as you are reading the story of so many people dying AND horrible choices people had to make to save the most people
• I Survived, Galveston Hurricane 1900– part of the series of the same name (I Survived), this is a good fictionalization of the events
• Ghosts of Galveston– I like “real ghost stories,” they greatly amuse me to read these old legends, so I’m including this knowing it’s not good history

This is the statue erected a few years ago to honor the people who died in the Galveston Flood of 1900.

“Hurricane Ike – Galveston – Murdoch’s Bathhouse” by rhaaga is licensed under CC PDM 1.0

“1900 Storm Memorial” by Surely Shirly is licensed under CC0 1.0