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Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
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The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 was the strongest tropical cyclone during the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season. The second tropical cyclone, second hurricane, and second intense hurricane of the season was the most intense Atlantic hurricane that affected the United States, and it was the first of three Category 5 hurricanes that struck the country in the 20th century. After forming as a weak tropical storm east of the Bahamas on August 29, it slowly proceeded westward, became a hurricane on September 1, and underwent rapid intensification prior to striking the upper Florida Keys on September 2.
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The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 was the strongest tropical cyclone during the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season. The second tropical cyclone, second hurricane, and second intense hurricane of the season was the most intense Atlantic hurricane that affected the United States, and it was the first of three Category 5 hurricanes that struck the country in the 20th century. After forming as a weak tropical storm east of the Bahamas on August 29, it slowly proceeded westward, became a hurricane on September 1, and underwent rapid intensification prior to striking the upper Florida Keys on September 2. After landfall at its peak intensity, it continued northwest along the Florida west coast, and it weakened prior to landfall near Cedar Key on September 4.
The compact and intense hurricane caused extreme damage in the upper Florida Keys, and a storm surge of approximately 18 to 20 feet affected the region. The hurricane's strong winds destroyed most of the buildings in the Islamorada area, and many World War I veteran workers were killed by the storm surge. Portions of the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railroad were severely damaged or destroyed. The hurricane also caused additional damage in northwest Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In total, more than 400 people were killed. To this day the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 is the strongest hurricane to ever strike the United States in terms of barometric pressure. In terms of maximum sustained winds Hurricane Camille takes this title.
Meteorological history
The storm was born as a small tropical disturbance due east of Florida near the Bahamas in late August. The disturbance drifted west through the islands toward the Gulf Stream, and U.S. weather forecasters became aware of a possible tropical storm approaching. Early on September 1, the tropical storm strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane as it neared the southern tip of Andros Island in the Bahamas and later crossed the southern end of the island while continuing to intensify.
As the hurricane entered the Gulf Stream late on September 1, intensification became considerably more rapid. It intensified without pause for a day and a half, while its track made a gentle turn to the northwest, toward Islamorada in the upper Keys. The hurricane reached its peak intensity late on September 2, and made landfall shortly thereafter between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. EST at Craig Key.
After striking the Keys, the hurricane began to weaken as it paralleled the west coast of Florida. It moved northwest on September 3, passed west of Tampa, and gradually turned to the north. It made a second landfall in northwest Florida near Cedar Key as a Category 2 hurricane on September 4. It quickly weakened to a tropical storm as it moved inland, and it passed over Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina prior to emerging into the Atlantic Ocean near Norfolk. On September 6, the storm quickly re-intensified to hurricane intensity, and it reached a second peak intensity of 90 mph (145 km/h). It quickly began to weaken, and the system rapidly became extratropical. The remnants continued northeast until it became extratropical south of Greenland on September 10.
Records
The Labor Day Hurricane was the most intense hurricane known to have struck the United States, and it is one of the strongest recorded landfalls worldwide. It was the only storm known to make landfall in the United States with a minimum central pressure below 900 mbar; only two others have struck the country with winds of Category 5 strength. It remains the third-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, and it remains surpassed by only Hurricanes Gilbert (1988) and Wilma (2005).
The maximum sustained wind speed at landfall is estimated to have been near 160 mph (260 km/h). However, recent reanalysis studies conducted by the NOAA Hurricane Research Division (HRD) suggest that the maximum sustained winds were more likely around 185mph (295 km/h) at landfall. A landfall intensity of 185 mph with a 892 mbar pressure would be plausible as 2005's Hurricane Wilma had a similar pressure with 185 mph winds. The recorded central pressure (a standard of comparison for hurricane intensity) was reliably reported as 26.35 inHg (892 mbar hPa). This was the record low pressure for a hurricane anywhere in the Western Hemisphere until surpassed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005. An unconfirmed report estimated the minimum central pressure as low as 880 mbar (26.00 inHg).
Impact
The main transportation route linking the Florida Keys to mainland Florida was a single railroad line, the Florida Overseas Railroad portion of the Florida East Coast Railway. A 10-car evacuation train, sent down from Homestead, was washed off the track by the storm surge and high winds on Upper Matecumbe Key. The train was supposed to rescue a group of World War I veterans who, as part of a government relief program, were building a new road bridge in the upper Keys. The engineer chose to back the train down the single track line, in hopes of saving time on the outward trip, and was unable to reach the waiting veterans before the storm did. Only the locomotive remained upright on the rails, and had to be barged back to Miami several months later.
In total, at least 423 people (164 residents and 259 veterans employed on the road project) were killed by the hurricane (the official National Weather Service estimate remains 408 deaths). Bodies were recovered as far away as Flamingo and Cape Sable on the southwest tip of the Florida mainland. In a fortunate coincidence, about 350 of the 718 veterans living in the Keys work camps were in Miami to attend a Labor Day baseball game when the storm hit. If not for this outing, many more of the men, whose barracks in the Keys were flimsy shacks, might have been killed by the storm.
The supervisor of the veterans camps, Ray Sheldon, and director of all Florida work camps, Fred Ghent, have been criticized for their failure to ensure the safety of the veterans as the storm approached. They read the Weather Bureau predictions, which had the storm passing south of the Florida Keys through the Straits of Florida, as a literal and definite forecast of the storm's path. They failed to account for the unpredictability of hurricanes, especially considering the primitive nature of meteorological observations in 1935. The federal government had an arrangement with the Florida East Coast Railway to provide a train to evacuate the men. However, due to miscommunication between the government and the railway, government officials believed that a train could be readied and sent to the Keys from mainland Florida more quickly than was the case. An official investigation conducted by Aubrey W. Williams, Harry Hopkins's top assistant, cleared those responsible for the camps of wrongdoing, categorizing the tragedy as an unfortunate act of God. However, Ernest Hemingway, who toured the Matecumbes two days after the storm, harshly blamed the government for the men's death in the September 17, 1935 issue of The New Masses magazine, in an article entitled, "Who Murdered the Vets? A First-Hand Report on the Florida Hurricane". Hemingway wrote, "You're dead now brother, but who left you there in the hurricane months on the Keys where a thousand men died before you when they were building the road that's washed out now? Who left you there? And what's the punishment for manslaughter now?"
The hurricane left a path of near-complete destruction in the Upper Keys centered on what is today the village of Islamorada. Nearly every structure was demolished, and some bridges and railway embankments were washed away. The links—rail, road, and ferry boats—that chained the islands together were broken.
The Islamorada area had been devastated, though the hurricane's destructive path was narrower than that of many tropical cyclones. Its eye was eight miles across, and the fiercest winds extended only 15 miles right of the center, less than 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which was also a relatively small and catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. Many parts of the Keys, a chain of islands more than 125 miles long from south of Miami to Key West, were practically untouched; damage was minimal in Key West, and there was little damage in the lower and far upper Keys.
Craig Key, Long Key, and Upper Matecumbe and Lower Matecumbe Keys (from approximately mile 60 to 80 on today's highway mileposts) suffered the worst. In this area, hundreds of bodies were caught in wreckage and mangrove thickets along the shore. By the third day after the storm, corpses had swelled and split open in the subtropical heat, according to rescue workers. Public health officials ordered plain wood coffins holding the dead to be stacked and burned in several locations.
The United States Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies organized evacuation and relief efforts. Boats and airplanes carried injured survivors to Miami. The railroad would never be rebuilt, but temporary bridges and ferry landings were under construction as soon as materials arrived, and within a few years a roadway (now called the Overseas Highway), for the first time, linked the entire Keys chain to mainland Florida.
The storm caused wind and flood damage at its mainland landfall along the Florida panhandle, and into Georgia.
Cultural impact
In the Bogart-Bacall hurricane film Key Largo the character played by Lionel Barrymore describes his experiences in the 1935 hurricane.
Memorial
Standing just east of U.S. 1 at mile marker 82 in Islamorada, near where Islamorada's post office had been, is a simple monument designed by the Florida Division of the Federal Art Project and constructed using Keys limestone ("keystone") by the Works Progress Administration. Unveiled in 1937 with more than 4,000 people in attendance, a frieze depicts palm trees amid curling waves, fronds bent in the wind. In front of the sculpture, a ceramic-tile mural of the Keys covers a stone crypt, which holds victims' ashes from the makeshift funeral pyres. The memorial was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1995.
The text on a plaque entitled "The Florida Keys Memorial" in front of the monument reads:
The Florida Keys Memorial, known locally as the "Hurricane Monument," was built to honor hundreds of American veterans and local citizens who perished in the "Great Hurricane" on Labor Day, September 2, 1935. Islamorada sustained winds of 200 miles per hour and a barometer reading of 26.36 inches for many hours on that fateful holiday; most local buildings and the Florida East Coast Railway were destroyed by what remains the most savage hurricane on record. Hundreds of World War I veterans who had been camped in the Matecumbe area while working on the construction of U.S. Highway One for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) were killed. In 1937 the cremated remains of approximately 300 people were placed within the tiled crypt in front of the monument. The monument is composed of native keystone, and its striking frieze depicts coconut palm trees bending before the force of hurricane winds while the waters from an angry sea lap at the bottom of their trunks. Monument construction was funded by the WPA and regional veterans' associations. Over the years the Hurricane Monument has been cared for by local veterans, hurricane survivors, and descendants of the victims.
See also
Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (Adventure Press)
by Willie Drye (Author)
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