The Great Storm removed two complete city blocks.
Today its foundations lie somewhere off shore. The original Tremont, a gracious wooden palace of a hotel, facing on to the beach, just exploded, splintering into a shower of planks. On this south side of the island there is nothing of pre-1900 Galveston left. The nuns roped together 90 of their children, hoping they would stand a better chance when the big wave came, but instead they pulled each other down. Walmart itself stands, bland and blowsy, on the site of the old St Mary's Orphanage, washed away in 1900. The seawall is a place for joggers, dog-walkers, and cars on their way to and from Walmart. That price included the "grade-raising" project, which lifted up on stilts all the buildings still standing and then in-filled below them so that Galveston island was now up to 15 feet above sea level. It was built after the Great Storm at a phenomenal early 20th-century cost of $10m.
Without this huge concrete lip, the damage from Ike would have been catastrophic. In the afternoon, I walk along the seawall. He certainly gives the lie to the image of the philistine Texan oilman. Mitchell owns 20 historic properties in Galveston and functions like a one-man National Trust in his home town. He then paid for the hotel to be drained, replastered, repainted and refurbished after Ike. The Texan billionaire George P Mitchell paid for the conversion. The first was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1900, the second burned down and this one – an old dry goods warehouse near the port – was opened in 1985. This building is, in fact, the third Tremont Hotel to stand in Galveston. The Tremont House Hotel on Mechanic Street, where I'm staying, is also immaculately restored, though there are photos in the lobby of the ground floor strewn with floating, dirty rattan furniture. Today, its pink, purple and green fascia has become something of a photo op on the tourist trail. As for colourful – who can miss "The Purple House" on 25th Street? It was painted in Mardi Gras colours by Robert Manoir, owner of the premiere gay bar in town, to cheer up the first, slightly muddy, carnival after Ike.