Texas History & Genealogy Blog: Disasters

New Texas Disaster Articles ..... Just added at http://www.gendisasters.com
Events That Touched Our Ancestor's Lives....

Amarillo, TX Convalescent Home Fire, Dec 1950
Chico, TX House Fire, Jan 1894
Childress, TX Fire Jan 1894
Comanche, TX Explosion and Fire, Jan 1900
Corsicana, TX Grocery Store Fire, Jan 1894
Corsicana, TX Oil Well Fire, May 1923
Dallas, TX Gun Store Fire, Mar 1882
DeKalb, TX Cunningham House Fire, Jan 1894
Dublin, TX McCormick & Russell Store Fire, Mar 1909
Fannin, TX Goff Gin Fire, Aug 1902
Galveston, TX Fire, Dec 1869
Hearne, TX Fire Jul 1873
Hillsboro, TX Fire Dec 1893
Hillsboro, TX Kirksey House Fire, Jan 1894
Houston, TX House Fire, Dec 1978
Humble, TX Oil Tank Fire, Jul 1905
Lampasas, TX Fire, Apr 1921
Longview, TX House Fires, Jul 1898
Orange, TX Electric Light Plant Fire, Jul 1898
Paris, TX Fire, 1915
San Angelo, TX Landon Hotel Fire, Aug 1902
Sulphur Springs, TX Tenant House Fire, Jul 1898
Temple, TX House Fire, Jul 1898
Texarkana, TX Fire Apr 1895
Arlington, TX Interurban Train - Automobile Wreck, Oct 1912
Beaumont, TX Train - Automobile Wreck, Jul 1954
Hempstead, TX Train Wreck, Nov 1884
Humble, TX Train Wreck, Dec 1922
Mexia, TX Train Wreck, Oct 1927
Sanderson, TX Train Wreck, Mar 1902
Austin, TX Auto Accident Jun 1947
Beaumont, TX Train - Automobile Wreck, Jul 1954
Durant, OK Auto Accident Jul 1925
Mesquite, TX Auto Wreck, Jun 1947
Borger, TX Oil Well Explosion, Apr 1927
Center, TX Gas Explosion, Dec 1935
Cisco, TX Torpedo Company Explosion, Jul 1919
Comanche, TX Explosion and Fire, Jan 1900
Dallas, TX House Explosion, Jul 1911
Iowa Park, TX Boiler Explosion, May 1923
Kilgore, TX Sawmill Boiler Explosion, Mar 1892
Mart, TX Explosion, Jul 1894
New London, TX School Explosion, Mar 1937
San Antonio, TX Engine Blows Up In Shop, Mar 1912
San Antonio, TX Gasoline Stove Explosion, Jul 1898
Texas City, TX Explosion, Apr 1947
Galveston, TX Hurricane, Aug 1915
Galveston, TX Hurricane, Sept 1900
Hurricane Carla Hits Texas Coast, Sept 1961
Indianola, TX Hurricane, Sept 1875
Briggs, TX Tornado, Apr 1906
Canton, TX Tornado, Apr 1919
Central Texas Tornado - Putnam, Star Mountain, Holliday Station - May 1904
Cisco, TX Tornado, Apr 1893
Colorado City, TX Tornado, May 1923
Dallas, TX Tornado, Apr 1957
Emory, TX Tornado, Mar 1894
Falls Creek, TX Tornado, May 1890
Glenrose, TX Tornado, May 1902
Goliad, TX Tornado, May 1902
Hebron, TX Tornado Apr 1927
Irving, TX Tornado, Apr 1927
Lamar, TX area Tornado, May 1905
Marshall, TX Tornado, Apr 1927
Port Arthur, TX Tornado Sept 1897
Shiner, TX Tornado, Jan 1891
Silverton, TX Tornado, May 1957
Troy, TX Tornado May 1893

More Texas Disasters
http://www3.gendisasters.com/category/united-states/texas

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Cross Plains: A Year After the Fire

December 27, 2006 Tells a Tale of Survival

Driving up Main Street through the business district, the Christmas lights twinkle and shine and the store window sport holiday scenes and greetings. Some say the Higginbotham's store windows are the prettiest they've ever been. It's hard to tell that one year ago two days after Christmas half of Cross Plains was charred blackened ruins, the aftermath of a devistating wildfire that took two lives and destroyed 116 homes and the United Methodist Church. It's hard to tell - until you reach the high school and look across main street to lot after lot of vacant land, land that for decades was filled with homes and families.

Now dotted with new homes, construction, and FEMA trailers, Cross Plains has made an amazing comeback in a short period of time. This, despite the predictions of one Dallas paper that too much was gone of Cross Plains for the town to rebuild and bounce back. Some folks left, some moved a few miles out to the country, many have rebuilt or are rebuilding.

Gone, too, from Cross Plains are the old delipatated buildings - gas stations and business of times past left to disrepair and ruin. When cleaning up the aftermath of the fire, Callahan County's men in orange were dispatched to tear down and remove the town's building eyesores, as well.

Cross Plains has risen from the ashes. And while December 27, 2005, will be remembered as Cross Plains' darkest hour, December 27, 2006 tells a tell of survival, as residents gather for a Victory Celebration and Hamburger Supper.

Read what today's Abilene-Reporter News says about Cross Plains one year later

Friday, August 18, 2006

Hurricane Alicia, now only a footnote

Twenty three years ago today Hurricane Alicia crashed through the Texas Coastline. Folks in Galveston, Seabrook, and Baytown remember it well.

21 people lost their lives. Another 3000 were injured or became ill. The Red Cross sheltered or fed 63,000 people. Over 2000 homes were destroyed and another 3,000 suffered major damage. Over 18,000 families suffered some kind of loss. The price tag for the costliest hurricane in Texas History: over $2 billion.

In Baytown, Alicia brought the end to the Brownwood subdivision, which had been slowly subsiding into the bay.

In downtown Houston, shards of glass became deadly missiles when hundreds of window panes were broken out of skyscrapers by gravel blown from nearby rooftops. The windows were designed to withstand hurricane winds but not impact
from debris. The result was huge piles of broken glass in the streets below.

On Galveston's West Beach, Alicia moved the public beach boundary back an average of 150'. The storm surge scoured up to 5' of sand from the beach and left several homes in front of the natural vegetation line and technically on the public beach.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Cross Plains: Rising from the Ashes

It's been seven months since a wildfire devastated the small Central Texas town of Cross Plains, killing two elderly women, destroying 117 homes, levelling the United Methodist Church, and changing life in this town of 1000 people.

After a million dollars in donations, volunteers from various Texas churches, work crews from the prisons near Abilene, much hard work, determination and prayer, Cross Plains has made a comeback.

Read the story in today's Houston Chronicle.

And, two different stories in from yesterday's Fort Worth Star Telegram that are being picked up in newspapers from California to North Dakota to Pennsylvania.
On Solid Foundation, Up from the Ashes

The second article features an interview with our friend and Cross Plains Volunteer Fire Chief Bob Harrell.

On a side note, among the list of churches taking turns furnishing lunch for the workers at the First Baptist Church in Cross Plains is the Cottonwood Baptist Church, from the community of Cottonwood, about 100 people, a few miles north of Cross Plains. The Cottonwood Volunteer Fire Control Group was one of the first responders to the Dec 27, 2005 Cross Plains fire.

More about Cottonwood at cottonwoodtexas.com

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Remembering a 40 Year Old Tragedy

A Sad Thing to Remember....

August 1, 1966, the Beatles were on the radio, Ed Sullivan on TV, and at the University of Texas in Austin students were making their way to their Monday morning classes. Charles Whitman, a student at the university, made his way to the 28th floor observation deck of the univerity's bell tower, a perfect vantage point for what was to follow.

In ninety minutes, Whitman wiped out the lives of 17 people, injured another 30 or so by-standers and changed the lives of countless parents, friends and students forever.

40 years ago today. The UT Massacre shocked and appalled people across the country. It was the nation's worst mass shooting at the time.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Indianola Washed Away in 1875 & 1886

Indianola: Now only a Memory

More than 100 years before Hurricane Katrina, a hurricane washed away great Texas city. Indianola, on the South Texas Coast, near Matagorda and Port Arthur, was hit with a major hurricane in 1875, then devastated again in 1886.

Today some people call Indianola a ghost town.
Truth is, there’s not much of a town here at all.
It’s hard to believe that Indianola was once a major Texas city, a rival to places like Galveston and a smaller port city called Houston.
And looking closely at the tombstones and you’ll notice so many people died on the same day, Sept. 16, 1875.
On that day, historians said, just a short walk from Indianola’s oldest cemetery, the waves and the winds picked up.

Read full article from KHOU-TV, Channel 11, Houston, Texas

Indianola before the Storm photo from texasoldphotos.com

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Galveston Hurricane 1900

More than 6,000 men, women and children lost their lives on September 8, 1900 the day of the Great Storm - the Galveston, Texas Hurricane of 1900. 106 years later the images are still haunting, the story still chilling of how this Katrina-like storm ripped through the prosperous island city.

1900Storm.com website from the Galveston Daily News

At Texas Old Photos - 1900 Galveston Hurricane Photos

Texas History & Genealogy Blog

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Crush, TX Staged Train Collision Kills 3 - 114 Years Ago Today

Monday, October 06, 2008

Texas Train Wrecks, Fires & Other Disasters

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Texas Train Wrecks, Fires, Explosions and other disasters

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Texas Train Wrecks, Fires and other disasters

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Texas Tornadoes, Fires, Train Wrecks on line..