Savannah, Ga., Oct. 5. – News from the storm-stricken districts along the coast is coming in gradually and it is probable that a hundred lives have been lost. News by way of a boat which arrived today is that fifty people were drowned at Fernandina.

The Morning News correspondent at Hinesville, the capital of Liberty County, says that an unconfirmed report has reached Riceboro, near there, that St. Catherine's Island was swept by Sunday's storm, and that Superintendent F.M. Wetherington and family were lost. The report, the correspondent says, is unconfirmed, but fairly reliable. It reached Riceboro by a negro, who claims to have been the only person on the island who escaped with his life. He climbed a tree and waited for the tide to recede..

Telegraph and telephone systems are still prostrated, and connections with coast towns are still cut off. Information is only obtainable by messengers, who can hardly pass the country roads.

McIntosh and Liberty Counties sustained heavy damages, but no estimate has yet been ventured. The Morning News correspondent at Brunswick wires this bare statement late to-night:

“Martin Anderson, master of the steamer Hesse, from Darien, Ga., reports that eighty bodies have been found on Butler's Island. This runs up the total deaths to 100. Butler's Island was populated mostly by negroes.”

From Campbell Island, inhabited by about forty colored people, it is reported that all but three were drowned. At Brunswick four people lost their lives, and at Jesup, 100 miles from the coast, one man was killed in a building blown down by the storm.

At Sterling Station, Charles Wright, a merchant, reports the disasters from the flood great to lives and property in the rice field portion of Glynn and McIntosh. There are a number of small islands at various points around Brunswick, Fernandina and Darien on which small groups of families live. It will be some days before accurate reports are heard from these points. At Darien, the water is reported high and the town badly damaged.

There are many rumors of loss of life, but all of the reports thus far received are believed to be exaggerated. Many of those who bring news left the scene of the storm during its height and consequently cannot be expected to give accurate information.

The damage by wind and rain has been enormous, and extends inland one hundred miles in some cases. The damage to shipping is enormous. Near Darien, the schooner Blanch Hopkins collided with a small schooner, the Minnie, and sunk her. The Minnie had on board 3,000 pounds of dynamite.

At Fernandina, the tug Gladiator is said to have landed in the middle of town. Mrs. Lucy Carnegie's magnificent yacht, Dungeness is badly damaged. The Cumberland Island pilot boat, Maud Helen, was landed high on a bluff in Burbank's yard.

The schooner Edia and Emma, with a cargo of coal, is on shore at Jekyl Island, near Charleston. The Jekyl Island Club launches landed in the clubhouse yards and the water has destroyed considerable of the club's property.

From Sapelo Island, the national quarantine station near Brunswick, nothing has been heard.

On St. Simon's Island along the beach, lined with summer resorters' cottages, the tide wrought devastation. Reports are that all the cottages have been wrecked. St. Simon's mills and other property on the opposite end of the island are not badly damaged, being protected by the timber lands.

Source:
The Washington Post, October 6, 1898, Page 1

Submitted by Bob Franks