The rescue train derailed by the 1935 Labor Day hurricane before it had a chance to rescue the hundreds of veterans stationed on the Keys. Image credit: NOAA Hurricane Research Division.įigure 4. Leonard Povey used to investigate the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the world’s first known “hurricane hunter” flight. Drawings of the Curtis Hawk II aircraft that Capt. Povey found the hurricane further north than expected, and a hurricane warning was issued for the Keys at 4:30 pm, just a few hours before the hurricane struck full force.įigure 3. Leonard Povey, volunteered to carry out what is believed to be the first-ever hurricane-hunter flight, approaching the storm on Monday afternoon in an open-cockpit Curtis Hawk II aircraft. An American “barnstormer” pilot with the Cuba Army Air Corps, Capt. Persistence forecasting suggested that the storm’s west-southwest motion would take it to the north coast of Cuba, but there was little sign of its approach there on Monday morning. Weather Bureau, could only surmise from nearby surface stations how quickly the storm was developing and how its motion was evolving. As a result, forecasters at a brand-new Hurricane Warning Center, established that year in Jacksonville, Florida, by the U.S. No satellite monitoring was available in 1935, and ships avoided tropical cyclones for good reason. The storm’s rapid development combined with several other factors to produce the human tragedy that resulted. Weather Bureau for September 4, 1935, showing the Labor Day hurricane two days after it struck the Keys. Track of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.įigure 2. The 1935 hurricane went on to skirt the west coast of the Florida peninsula before accelerating northeastward, reentering the Atlantic off the Virginia coastline and producing rains that topped 16” in Maryland.įigure 1. (Dropsondes released by reconaissance aircraft produced sea-level pressure measurements of 882 mb on October 19, 2005, during Hurricane Wilma, and 870 mb on October 12, 1979, during Typhoon Tip). This remains the lowest value ever measured by a ground-based station in a tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere. As the hurricane barreled across the Keys on Monday night, local weather observer Ivar Olsen measured 26.35” (892 mb) with a barometer that was later tested and proven reliable at the Weather Bureau. ![]() Brushing the south end of Andros Island, it headed toward the north coast of Cuba before angling unexpectedly rightward and intensifying with astonishing speed as it approached the Keys, passing over the very warm waters of the Florida Straits. The compact Labor Day hurricane of 1935 developed very rapidly from a system that was classified as a tropical storm less than two days before landfall in the Keys. The strongest landfalling hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere brought Category 5 winds and a terrifying storm surge to the upper Florida Keys on the late evening of Monday, September 2, 1935. workers, a group of World War I veterans toiling to improve life on the Florida Keys lost their lives in one of the great workplace tragedies of U.S. ![]() Eighty years ago, on this federal holiday that recognizes U.S. This is their story, with newly discovered photos and stories of some of the heroes of the Labor Day 1935 calamity.As Tropical Storm Grace struggles in the Atlantic (see below), today offers a chance to commemorate the victims of a much more devastating cyclone. About 400 veterans were left unprotected in flimsy work camps. Only the 160-ton locomotive was left upright on the tracks. The train was slammed by the storm surge soon after it reached Islamorada. Supervisors waited too long to call for an evacuation train from Miami to move the vets out of harm's way. The hurricane that struck the Upper Florida Keys on the evening of Septemis still the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the US. But US Weather Bureau forecasters could only guess at its exact position, and their calculations were well off the mark. When it entered the Straits of Florida, however, it exploded into one of the most powerful hurricanes on record. In late August 1935, a small, stealthy tropical storm crossed the Bahamas, causing little damage. The supervisors in charge of the veterans misunderstood the danger posed by hurricanes in the low-lying Florida Keys. But the attempt to help them turned into a tragedy. The Roosevelt Administration was making a genuine effort to help these down-and-out vets, many of whom suffered from what is known today as post-traumatic stress disorder. ![]() In 1934, hundreds of jobless World War I veterans were sent to the remote Florida Keys to build a highway from Miami to Key West.
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