The first reports to reach the outside world of the horrific aftermath of the hurricane come the following day at 11:25 PM. In a telegram to Moore, a Houston Western Union manager reports that passengers on a train which could get no closer than six miles to the city see the prairie strewn with dead bodies: “Loss of life and property undoubtedly most appalling" (223), the manager writes. Among the first to witness the carnage are Captain Simmons and the crew of the Pensacola, who survive the nightmare only to return a devastated Galveston. By the time they reach the shore, "the scent of putrefaction was overpowering" (225).

Even as late as Tuesday, no one outside the city knows the extent of the havoc wrought by the storm. When a group of survivors reach Houston on Sunday reporting up to 500 dead, their claims are dismissed as exaggerations. The earliest outsiders to see the damage themselves are a convoy of journalists, military officers, and soldiers sent to aid in relief efforts. After a train carries the men as far as it can, they set out on foot. That's when they see their first corpses: “What was so striking about the dead was their battered condition.