Cat 5 storm struck The Keys
During hurricane season, the Florida Keys would seem to be in a horrible spot to be, often in the path of a hurricane. And indeed the Keys see their fair share of hurricane action. However, situated to the north of Cuba, it has some protection. The central mountains of Cuba often shred a Hurricane or, if not delivering a fatal blow, they at least literally “knock the wind out of it.”
But a hurricane’s eye can thread the eye of the needle and can actually have very little loss of its punch. For this to happen the hurricane has to move quickly through the Florida Straights. During hurricane season, the Florida Straights are usually warm and it is a great path into the toasty Gulf of Mexico, where a hurricane can cross to Texas or the Texas/Louisiana border, or even more likely recurve into the western Florida Panhandle to mid Mississippi. And this has happened on many occasions. One such storm with disastrous consequences was the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.
The Labor Day hurricane had one of the lowest pressures ever recorded for an Atlantic storm. It was 892 mb. Between 400 to 600 deaths were a direct result of the hurricane. The financial cost in 1935 dollars was 6 million. It today’s dollars it would be over 100 million dollars.
On Sept. 2, which was Labor Day, an advisory pronounced that a disturbance “will probably pass through the Florida Straights Monday.” The warnings become more ominous as time went on. Orders were made for a train to go to the upper Keys to evacuate veterans from work camps in the upper keys. The train got delayed. The bottom line is it arrived at its destination the same time as the Category 5 hurricane. The Storm surge was 20 feet and the train was swept off its tracks. Whole keys were under water.
Earnest Hemingway road out the storm in Key West, but wrote an extremely critical article about how the veterans were dealt with. Part of the ire was directed to the mass cremations where the identity of many of those being cremated was not known, as some the vets were not held with much esteem. There is no indication or justification that was a fair assessment.
Ultimately there was plenty of blame to go around and plenty of targets for that blame.
None of which did anything for those who needlessly died. Even today, the inter-governmental bickering over the marking of unmarked graves and who has to apply continues.
Peter Ray is a professor of meteorology at Florida State University. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org.