A hurricane history lesson
Was there a call to evacuate?
Some of the camp leaders realized that the storm would be catastrophic and asked that a train be sent down from Miami to evacuate the veterans. But the only man with the authority to approve the trip was on his honeymoon and unreachable. The train just sat in the station. When the order finally came through, the train was held up at a bridge by a group of sailboats. It was a group of wealthy boaters also fleeing the storm but preventing this rescue train from going south. The whole tragedy was the result of stupidity piled on stupidity.
[The train] finally pulled into the camp headquarters at the exact moment the hurricane came through. The entire train was blown right off the rails, and any chance to escape was literally washed away. No one knows exactly how many people died, but it is estimated that 250 veterans perished and many other civilians.
What did the investigation discover?
An initial investigation quickly concluded that the storm had been an act of God, that no one could have foreseen what had happened, that nothing could have been done to evacuate the veterans.
Meanwhile, Congress convened a formal inquiry. [It] took depositions from about 250 survivors, and it became clear that the people in charge of the camp were at fault. But the hearings were a total whitewash. The conclusion was that the private railroad company was at fault for failing to send down the train, but no one from the railroad was called to testify.
Immediately, people began asking why the veterans didn't leave. The answer, [as with] many of the residents of New Orleans, is that they stayed there because that's where their jobs and homes were. When they finally decided to leave, there was no way out.
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