[masraum]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

A shot that goes with the picture above (tree in house, Johnstown, PA.1889)

This is the Plot of the Unknowns. More than 750 unknown victims of the flood of 1889 rest here at Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown, Pa.

I think it's fairly unusual for large groups like that to end up like that. I think often when there are large groups of dead, they often get buried in mass graves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/566950355/the-tempest-at-galveston-we-knew-there-was-a-storm-coming-but-we-had-no-idea

The city of Galveston was effectively obliterated.

The dead bodies were so numerous that burying all of them was impossible. Initially, bodies were collected by "dead gangs" and then given to 50 African American men – who were forcibly recruited at gunpoint – to load them onto a barge. About 700 bodies were taken out to sea to be dumped. However, after gulf currents washed many of the bodies back onto the beach, a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up on the beaches, or wherever dead bodies were found, and burned day and night for several weeks after the storm. The authorities passed out free whiskey to sustain the distraught men conscripted for the gruesome work of collecting and burning the dead.

Floating wreckage from the 1900 storm's destruction of Galveston






Galveston was essentially raised. The seawall was built on the Gulf side of the island, and then the island was raised from the top edge of the wall back to the original height on the intercoastal waterway side of the island. So the island is now slanted with the high side being towards the Gulf of Mexico. And I think it's mostly working.

Since 1900 more of the island has been built on...