A hurricane history lesson
The Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale didn't exist in 1935. But if it had, the storm that devastated the Florida Keys 70 years ago would have earned a Category 5 designation. The Labor Day Hurricane killed hundreds and was the most powerful hurricane on record ever to make landfall in the United States. Author Phil Scott chronicles the storm's sprint across the Sunshine State archipelagos in Hemingway's Hurricane: The Great Florida Keys Storm of 1935. As this year's hurricane season--one of the most destructive on record--came to an official close, Scott spoke with U.S. News about the Depression-era disaster. Excerpts follow.
Why have so few people today heard of the 1935 storm?
The hurricane was national news, but people soon forgot about it. A few weeks afterwards, Huey Long was killed, a war broke out in Africa--the headlines changed very quickly. Most of the focus was on a luxury liner that ran aground on Key Largo, not on the hundreds of World War I veterans who were killed. It is a story of the haves and the have-nots. Hurricane Katrina revisited that storm in a lot of ways; same storm, different administration. If not for [Ernest] Hemingway, the storm may have been forgotten altogether.
How does Hemingway figure into this tale?
He had a house on Key West and took his boat into the area two days after the storm hit. He saw bodies floating in the harbor and recognized people that he knew. The area was devastated; bloated dead bodies were stuck up in trees, corpses everywhere. Hemingway was completely incensed by the whole thing and felt that the government should have helped rescue these people. So he wrote a scathing article in New Masses magazine entitled "Who Murdered the Vets?" There was so much public outrage that Congress was forced to investigate.
Why were veterans from World War I camped out in the Keys?
The veterans were out of work and looking for jobs. The government sent about 600 of them to work on projects in the South, including a project to build a road across the Florida Keys. At the time, the only thing connecting the string of islands to the mainland was a railroad that had been constructed around the turn of the century. When the workers first arrived, they lived in Army tents. Then they built camps of wooden shacks, which were designed only as temporary shelters where they could stay while working on the road. A strong breeze would have blown the cabins over.
How much warning was there that a hurricane was on the way?
Weather forecasting was nothing like it is today, but the authorities and the general population knew that a huge storm was approaching. In those days, everyone had a barometer: When they saw the pressure dropping, they knew that a storm was approaching. Most of the veterans had never been through a hurricane. Several of them were actually looking forward to it, wanting to see what it was all about.
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.
This story appears in the December 12, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.