1915 Galveston hurricane

The 1915 Galveston hurricane passed over western Cuba, crossed the Gulf of Mexico and came ashore near San Luis Pass, Texas, about 26 miles southwest of Galveston, around 1 a.m. on August 17, 1915.¹ NHC's best track puts that landfall at 0700 UTC on August 17 as a Category 4 hurricane with 115-knot (132 mph) winds and a central pressure of 940 mb.²

The Weather Bureau at Galveston measured winds of 93 mph from the east at 2:37 a.m., and the tide reached about 12 feet above mean low tide.¹ Water stood 5 to 6 feet deep in the downtown business district and damaged goods in stores and warehouses.¹ Waves pouring over the 17-foot seawall washed sand out from under about 200 homes behind it, and of the 250 homes on the island outside the seawall, no more than about 10 percent were left standing.¹ Wind broke plate-glass windows downtown and damaged roofs, windows and chimneys across residential areas.¹ The Weather Bureau estimated about $6 million in damage at Galveston and about $1 million in Houston, where nearly every building had some damage.¹

At Port Arthur, Sabine Lake flooded the city with 8 to 10 feet of water on Proctor Street, and every ground floor was under water by noon on August 17.³ The storm killed 275 people, 11 of them in the city of Galveston and 42 elsewhere on Galveston Island.¹