Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928 [Hardcover]

Eliot Kleinberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

In September 1928, when great storms were still unnamed, nearly 700 black men, women, and children were buried in an unmarked West Palm Beach ditch following the nation's second-deadliest hurricane. The savage gusts that churned the waters of Lake Okeechobee into a maelstrom of death afflicted victims of all races and classes, and produced tales of survival and loss among whites and blacks alike. The vast majority of the post-storm workers were poor black migrants; even if the hurricane was color-blind, the recovery and rebuilding effort were not. Palm Beach Post hurricane reporter and Florida native Eliot Kleinberg has penned the gripping tale of the killer hurricane. The storm's journey is chronicled as it kills perhaps 7,000 people along its path from the Caribbean to Canada, including a low official tally of 1,836 in Florida alone. Detailing the storm's track, the failure to properly predict landfall, personal battles against nature's wrath, and the extraordinary suffering of a black citizenry forced to provide a disproportionate amount of rebuilding labor and endure the burial of friends and family in an unmarked pit, Kleinberg tells a powerful story of man versus nature and man versus man.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On September 16, 1928, a devastating hurricane struck Florida. Although it was one of the deadliest hurricanes in history, taking the lives of 7,000 people as it swept from the Caribbean to Canada, it has been largely forgotten. In his exhaustive but unwieldy chronicle of the storm, Kleinberg (Historical Traveler's Guide to Florida) details its effect on Florida, where winds of up to 160 mph, inadequate forecasting, lack of communication and insufficient evacuation routes contributed to tremendous loss of life. Many of the victims were poor black laborers who lived in communities near the huge inland Lake Okeechobee, where a flimsy dike broke and the water was pushed "across the land in a moving engine of death." For Florida's blacks, the tragedy was compounded by the fact that while white dead were given decent burial, nearly 700 African-American dead were unceremoniously dumped into a 1.5-acre mass grave in West Palm Beach. Basing his narrative on interviews with survivors and material from archives, newspapers, diaries and official reports, Kleinberg presents vivid pictures of dozens of individual ordeals and recounts the tale of black suffering in the region around Lake Okeechobee, which appears in Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Although he dulls the emotional impact with too much detail (the chapter on Hurston, for example, unnecessarily includes a full account of her life), he does capture the drama and tragedy of the unnamed storm that did much more damage than the famous Hurricane Andrew of 1992. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Eliot Kleinberg, a Florida native, has written or contributed to six books, all of them focusing on Florida and Florida’s history. The lead hurricane reporter and history writer for the Palm Beach Post—which was the newspaper of record when the 1928 storm struck—Kleinberg obtained unrivaled knowledge of the hurricane’s story and unique access to historical, meteorological, and personal sources. He is a member of the Florida, South Florida, and Palm Beach County historical societies. He lives in Boca Raton with his wife and two sons.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786711469
• ISBN-13: 978-0786711468
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,207,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WWW.ELIOTKLEINBERG.COM
Eliot Kleinberg is that rarest of Floridians: a native.
Born in South Florida, he has spent 35 years in both broadcast and print news, including a quarter century at the Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach. In addition to covering local news for the Post, he also writes extensively about Florida and Floridiana.
He has published 10 books, all focusing on Florida, including Black Cloud, a 75th anniversary book on the great 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane; two Weird Florida books, and Palm Beach Past and Wicked Palm Beach, both collections of his weekly local history column in the Post that's run continuously for a dozen years.
He's now toiling to complete his first fiction effort, Peace River, a historical novel based at the end of the Civil War.
Eliot was born in Coral Gables in 1956, graduated the Miami-area public schools in 1974, and received two degrees from the University of Florida.
His career as a radio and television reporter and editor, from 1979 to 1984, included work in Miami and at the Cable News Network. He was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News from 1984 until 1987, when he returned to Florida and joined the Post.
He is a member of the Florida, South Florida and Palm Beach County historical societies.
Eliot lives at Casa Floridiana in Boca Raton with his wife and two sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling account of devasting 1928 hurricane, December 15, 2003

By 

Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928 (Hardcover)

Do you ever stop and shake your head at all of the apartment complexes, condominiums, beachfront homes and commercial enterprises that have sprung up all along the coastline? It would seem that many Americans are unaware of or have become indifferent to the danger posed by hurricanes. In "Black Cloud", Eliot Kleinberg describes the horrors of the second deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. An estimated 7000 people were killed in its wake. Kleinberg describes the unique set of circumstances in 1928 Florida that caused the overwhelming majority of the casualties to occur inland near Lake Okeechobee.
The author provides the fascinating history that led to the draining of the Everglades, and the ill-advised construction of a flimsy dike around Lake Okeechobee that contributed in a huge way to the incomprehensible loss of life that occured during this storm. As is true in a great many disasters, what occured here was the unfortunate combination of a great many circumstances. I found the book to be fairly well written and for the most part easy to follow. And as you might expect, race played a major role in how the situation was handled by both public officials and the population at large. If you are a history buff or are fascinated with natural disasters this is certainly a book you should consider.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poorly known tragedy...and portent, July 19, 2004

By 

Kirstin DeGeer "kdbiogirl" (Melbourne, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928 (Hardcover)

I agree with other reviewers that spoke highly of this work. This book is deeply moving in its portrayal of how a natural disaster combined with ineffective governmental precautions, human arrogance, and racial inequity to create an unmitigated human tragedy. The portrayal of people from all across the board is unfettered by political correctness as the author explores the range from poor black laborers buried in mass graves to a reactionary black interest group that tried to discredit the Red Cross, one of the few organizations relatively prepared for this emergency.

The events in this book are made all the more tragic when one realizes that humans have learned precious little from this type of disaster. As the earth warms, whether caused by man or not, the probablility of catastrophic hurricanes reaching our coasts may dramatically increase. And yet we build on coastal land until the water has nowhere to go and we remain haughty in the face of natural power. We also ignore human factors seen in the 1928 storm that linger on in Florida.

I highly recommend reading this book within the context of modern times and possiblilities. Or, try immersing yourself (if you can get past the numerous "typos" in the book) in the world of early Florida settlement. Either way, you will embark on a heart-wrenching experience that will long be remembered.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Little Known Hurricane in FL, February 4, 2005

By 

Michael Makar (Bradenton, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Black Cloud: The Great Florida Hurricane of 1928 (Hardcover)

Very good book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in hurricanes or disasters. This hurricane is not very well know yet the deaths attributed to certainly qualifies it as a major disaster worthy of remembering. I bet most Floridians have never even heard about this event. Hopefully this book will change some of that. The author brings to life the hardships endured by the victims and describes how the disaster came about.