Abilene Weekly Reflector

HURRICANE REPORT.

Business Houses in Brunswick, Ga., Inundated by a Tidal Wave.

ONLY A FEW LIVES THOUGHT LOST.

Much Damage to New York Millionaires' Club Houses at Jekyl Island-Negro Suburb Destroyed-The Loss to Railroads Considerable.

Brunswick, Ga., Oct. 4.-During the tropical hurricane of Sunday, a tidal wave was driven in from the sea and inundated, for an average depth of five feet, practically every business house and warehouse in the city. Conservative estimates place the property loss at $500,000, though when the details are all in the figures may be considerably shaded either way. The Mallory steamship and South railroad docks were under water four feet. In the residence section of the city, the water was from two to eight feet deep. There was a full sweep of wind and water from the ocean into and across the city. Two fatalities in Brunswick and one a few miles out of the city have been reported. Those in the city were negro children. Their parents are missing and may have been drowned. A few miles out of town Steritt Aiken, colored, was killed by falling bricks blown from a chimney. Meager reports from the Sea islands, on the coast, are far from reassuring. At Jekyl island, where the club houses of New York millionaires are situated, much damage has been done. Dix ville, a suburb of Brunswick, inhabited by negroes, was inundated and the destruction is almost complete. No lives were lost there. Five vessels are ashore in Brunswick harbor, two being the Norwegian barks Record and Louise, one an American schooner and two valuable pilot boats. On the docks are hundreds of thousands of feet of lumber and cross ties and naval stores which will be washed away. Nearly all the docks suffered from lifting. While the water was doing its damage underneath the wind was playing havoc overhead. Several fronts of brick buildings were blown partly out and the rain poured through in torrents. Every church in the city was damaged either by water or wind. All electric wires were prostrated. Fires in locomotives in and near the city were put out by the driving sheets of water. The loss to railroads has been considerable from washing of tracks and injury to terminal property. Communication cannot be fully restored for a day or two.

The flood which inundated the islands and low lands around Savannah and all the vicinity coast has partially subsided. The first news from the Sea islands on the South Carolina coast between Tybee and Beaufort, where the great tidal wave of 1893 caused such fearful fatality, was received last night. The damage by the storm there was comparatively small and so far as known there was no loss of life. The steamer Clifton made the trip there late last night. The flood was driven by a northeast gale and did not cover any of the Sea islands in that section, except those nearest the ocean. The wind reached a velocity of nearly 100 miles an hour. The four schooners, Synara, Milleville, Fannie Childs and Franklin, which were driven into the marshes at quarantine, will be floated after the removal of their cargoes.

At Tybee there was less damage than feared. The fortifications were piled with sand several feet deep around the guns, but the flood did not reach them. On the islands near the city the crops have been entirely swept away, and much live stock has been lost, but there were no fatalities. The rice crop near Georgetown, S. C., suffered $75,000 damage.