mountains in the background of Galveston Tx beach scene

In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail.

In October 1991, a storm hit the east coast of North America with rains and waves so intense and deadly that the stories of those who faced it spawned a best-selling book and a blockbuster motion picture. Through exciting real-life footage and interviews, this documentary chronicles the true tales of the daring Coast Guard rescuers who put their lives on the line to save those unlucky enough to be caught in the perfect storm.

Lewis’s latest film, Galveston, 2017, newly commissioned by The Contemporary Austin and on view at the Jones Center, takes the city of Galveston, Texas, as both its setting and title. This island off the Gulf Coast has had many lives—as historic immigration port, center for shipping and the petrochemical industry, site of natural disasters, and tourist destination—and this complex, layered history becomes the backdrop and undercurrent for the film. In Galveston, Lewis’s ever-present subject is the iconic white skyscraper of One Moody Tower, visible throughout the southeast Texas city since it was completed in 1972.

This picture shows several buildings which were wrecked and also shows a rear view of this hotel, which is on the highest point of land in Galveston, and in which several thousand people were saved.

At the first news of the disast by cyclone and tidal wave that devastated Galveston on Saturday, September 8th, 1900, we equipped a party of photographers and sent them by special train to the scene of the ruins. Arriving at the scene of desolation shortly after the storm had swept over the city, our party succeeded, at the risk of life and limb, in taking about a thousand feet of motion pictures, although Galveston was under martial law and photographers were shot down at sight by the excited police. The series, taken as a whole, gives a definite idea of the most terrible disaster since the Johnstown flood of 1889.

Silent film footage of the hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in 1913. Lost.

This building and machinery supplied the electric power and electric light for the entire city of Galveston, including the car system. The building, which is of solid masonry, is a complete wreck, and together with the twisted iron work of the machinery, shows the tremendous power of the cyclone.