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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Most intense storm in US history..............., May 28, 2006
The hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935 is still listed as the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the US. It is estimated to have had 200 mph winds and although it's eye was not large, the power of this storm surpassed anything imagined.
The victims numbered 423 known dead, 259 of them were veterans of World War I. These men had been "employed" to build a highway connecting the Keys all the way through to Key West. It was a "make work" program seemingly designed to remove the veterans from the spotlight in Washington D.C., like a splinter in the FDR political eye. The veterans had been marching on Washington and camping there demanding pay bonuses that had been promised to them. Many were in desperate situations with the Depression in full form. Sending them far away to the Keys to work and make money must have seemed like the answer to everyone's desires. Tragedy was to unfold.
In September of 1935, as the veterans labored on, the Weather Bureau was tracking a tropical storm that would become the most intense hurricane in US history. Due to a lack of coverage in many areas, the path of the storm had to be projected, leaving room for error. Even so, warnings were put out to the Keys and while locals begin to make preparations, the veterans had no prior experience with hurricanes. They depended on their camp director and other in charge to make the evacuation decisions, which was to include sending a train to remove them from the path of danger. Decisions were either made to late or not made at all and the train would not arrive in time. The train itself, would be washed off the tracks and nearly washed out to sea. 259 veterans would loose their lives.
While there are amazing parallels between this storm of 1935 and Katrina, there are also striking differences. The forecasters urgently warned about Katrina, a more direct and well broadcast warning than in 1935. In both storms people waited to be evacuated by others for a variety of reasons. While the reasons are varied, the reality is that government is not all powerful nor is it capable of dealing with huge scale evacuations. When individuals give up their personal responsibility, the results will be haphazard and even deadly as is proven true in both these hurricanes. When those directly in charge fail to take reasonable steps to protect the very lives they are charged with protecting, the result will be disastrous. In this case the camp director in 1935 and the Mayor of New Orleans seem to have a lot in common.
This is a vivid account of the 1935 hurricane. The stories of the victims and survivors as their island is virtually swept clean, inundated by the storm surge is intense and electrifying. These are stories that have a depth of emotion that was not expected from men who had become inured to hardship and death in WWI. The attempted downplaying of the disaster for political reasons is stunning. While the role of Ernest Hemingway seems nearly minute, he did draw attention to the plight of the veterans.
Phil Scott has written a clear and vivid account of a disaster in the making and the lives that were battered and destroyed. The politics and the human faces of the intrepid veterans combine to form a story well worth the reading.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, ironic twist, January 26, 2006
Phil Scott's book, "Hemingway's Hurricane" is a quick and good read about the century's most powerful hurricane....the category 5 storm that smashed into the Florida Keys over Labor Day weekend in 1935. Finished before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, Scott's book takes on a narrative with some unintended consequences and supreme ironies.
Set as a timeline, the author briefs the reader well with his background of the Bonus Army of World War I veterans, their 1932 march on Washington D.C. and the veterans' subsequent detour to the Florida Keys, courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to give them low-paying jobs. "Hemingway's Hurricane" centers around these hundreds of veterans, their work in the Keys (much of it building roads) and the misfortune they had at being directly in the path of the hurricane. Scott relates all of this in a nicely paced way. Yet two things stand out in his book....there's very little to do with Ernest Hemingway....he makes not much more than a minor appearance at the beginning and at the end, so the title of the book is confusing. The author also provides too many cameo appearances by others who were part of the storm and the recovery. Fewer characters with more time spent with them would have increased my enjoyment of Scott's work.
Yet it is the comparison to Katrina, not mentioned in "Hemingway's Hurricane" that makes for the unintended attraction. The 1935 storm had its own version of FEMA (FERA) and a major player, Fred Ghent, the director of the veteran's camps, who was the Michael Brown of his day. His decision not to get a relief train down in time to evacuate the veterans was one of the worst miscalculations of the storm. It's almost as if we can hear FDR saying, "Ghentie, you're doin' a heckuva job!" Perhaps the oddest and saddest comparison is that Katrina, hitting Louisiana almost seventy years to the day after the Keys hurricane, underscores that government hasn't come all that far in preparedness, rescue and recovery.
"Hemingway's Hurricane" is a good book but not a great one. However, Scott's attention to detail make it worth the read and the story is one that has needed to be told.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scott made me care, December 22, 2005
I've never had an interest in visiting the Florida Keys, nor truly understood the plight of post World War I veterans -- even though my grandfather had been one -- but with the publishing of Hemingway's Hurricane by Phil Scott, I found myself caring. I now want to visit the Keys and explore, where this amazing tragedy took place, and to see first-hand just what it meant to span approximately 130 miles of water and islands by both train track and roadway. Scott's book provides both the necessary exposition to pave the way, while building suspense for the pending storm, much like those of us in television land find ourselves checking cable channels for updates on where and when storms will hit in the present day. From the building of a rail line as early as 1912 (the year the Titanic sank), known as Flagler's Folly, all the way to Key West to the semi-permanent Hooverville encampments and Bonus Marches near the White House during the Depression years, which encompasses public dissatisfaction with the federal government
(long before the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam Anti-War activities occupied our nation's attention), this book truly prepares the reader for nature's destructive force. Scott also manages to draw the reader in long before Ernest Hemingway enters the picture, but the Hemingway angle helps make a timely connection between gross
negligence in 1935 and the equally unexpected results of 2005's Hurricane Katrina
and the combined slow response from today's federal, state, and local governments.
I always expect my high school English and journalism students to "extend the text" to seek connections and meaning outside of the printed pages. For this reason, I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about how our government operates. There are lessons to be learned here, even if the events took place 70 years ago. And although the book moves quickly, I find myself stopping to check one or both of the two maps detailing both the Florida Keys and placement of the work camps, plus I find myself delving into the internet to pursue further inquiry. I do this because Scott's narrative and depth of information has given me reason to care and explore further this fascinating true story.
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