Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 [Paperback]

Willie Drye (Author)

Book Description

Series: Adventure Press | Publication Date: July 1, 2003

The most powerful hurricane in United States history assaulted the Florida Keys in 1935, the darkest year of the Great Depression. With winds surpassing 200 miles an hour and tidal storm surges topping 20 feet, the "Storm of the Century" killed more than 400 people in a two-day span, devastating in particular a community of federally sponsored construction workers building a highway in the Florida Keys - and kicking up a far-reaching political storm of acrimony and controversy in its wake. Told from the alternating viewpoints of storm survivors, federal Works Project Administration employees, government officials, and local business owners, Storm of the Century is an ambitious work of investigative journalism and historical research, panoramic in scope and haunting in its emotional immediacy. Featuring previously undisclosed documents from the original government investigation, noted journalist Willie Drye's vivid account of the storm's rampage is accompanied by fascinating revelations about how federal administrators ignored early hurricane warnings - and why the ensuing disaster very nearly cost Franklin Delano Roosevelt the election of 1936. Drye's bracing narrative takes us back to the Florida Keys of the 1930s and delivers the first comprehensive explanation of how the economic crises of the Depression and the cruel mandates of political expediency collided full-force with the might of the hurricane itself and ultimately exploded into a national tragedy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On Labor Day in 1935, a hurricane that produced the record low barometric pressure reading of 26.35 inches hit Florida's upper Keys, destroying virtually everything in its path. In his meticulously researched work, Drye gives a vivid, detailed account of the storm's approach and impact when it made landfall. Drye was drawn to the story of the unnamed hurricane not only because of its intensity, but also because it killed nearly 260 World War I veterans who were building a highway as part of a federal construction program. Living in flimsy huts built in low-lying areas, the veterans' only chance to survive the storm was evacuation, a move officials were too slow to order. The first two-thirds of the book, which includes a terrific description of the Keys around the turn of the century (when Key West was Florida's largest city), is especially gripping, punctuated with first-hand survivor accounts of the storm's fury. Responsibility for the deaths of the veterans became a political football, and the blatantly partisan investigation that ensued will have a timeless resonance for followers of American politics. But Drye overreaches when he suggests that full disclosure about the disaster could have caused problems for FDR's reelection bid; the author is on far safer ground as a weather historian than as a political commentator. (Sept.)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The Labor Day hurricane of 1935, which ravaged the Florida Keys, was the most devastating hurricane to ever hit the U.S. In the Keys at the time were hundreds of World War I veterans, sent to build bridges as part of Roosevelt's New Deal program to provide government-funded work for those left destitute by the Depression. The makeshift work camps were totally destroyed by the winds and storm surge, killing hundreds of workers who, through miscommunication or carelessness, were not evacuated by the federal agencies overseeing the work programs. With extensive depth, Drye covers the political fallout afterwards and the inquiries into the way the Roosevelt administration handled the crisis. Impressively, this account does not take the easy stance of vilifying those in charge but instead portrays them as all-too-human and naive about a hurricane's destructive potential. Drye tells many of the victims' and survivors' stories in painful detail, describing tragedy and danger scarcely imaginable. A powerful book that will leave a lasting impression on every reader. Gavin Quinn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: National Geographic (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792241037
• ISBN-13: 978-0792241034
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #930,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Politics of a Weather Disaster, September 11, 2002

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (Adventure Press) (Hardcover)

Willie Drye's "Storm of the Century" treads in the same footsteps as Erik Larsen's classic "Issac's Storm" from a couple of years ago. Both are historical and social accounts of deadly hurricanes the struck the United States and took a much larger toll on human life than they should have because of regrettable human mistakes. Larsen's book told the tale of the Glaveston Hurricane of 1900 that was the deadliest in U.S. history. Drye's account, meanwhile, is of the Labor Day storm of 1935 that struck the Florida Keys and is suspected of being the strongest hurricane to make landfall in U.S. history.

Drye does not content himself with merely retelling the story of the strom and the mayhem it caused. Instead he focuses on the lives of the islanders, most particularly on an unfortunate group of World War I veterans left destitute by the Great Depression and hired to build the highway that would eventually connect Key West with the mainland. A large number of the veterans were trapped on the low level island and drowned as a hapless rescue train sent to retrieve them was blown of the tracks. Their story and that of the bureaucratic bungling that left them to their fate is the book's most compelling part.

On the downside, Drye lacks the deft storytelling touch that helped make "Issac's Storm" so memorable. The book is a bit over long for its subject at over 300 pages, lengthened considerably by a deteailed account of the ultimately futile investigations of the officals responsible for the veteran's welfare. This part is not as compelling and at times displays a political bias against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Overall, a decent historical account of a horrific weather releated disaster.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Popular history with some flaws, April 4, 2004

By 

Edison McIntyre (Durham, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (Paperback)

I grew up in South Florida and spent many weekends on Lower Matecumbe Key, ground zero for the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. I went through Hurricane Donna and a few others in the early 1960s, and I don't care to do that again -- another reason why the 1935 disaster has long fascinated me. It is a story of heartbreaking human miscalculation in the face of an overwhelming natural event.

Drye writes well and moves the narrative along. When writing of factual matters and the experiences of those who endured the storm, the books succeeds pretty well. However, he buys into some of the political mythology surrounding the events of the storm -- e.g., that World War I veterans were sent to the Florida Keys by officials of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration to prevent them from re-staging the 1932 "Bonus March" that gave such a black eye to Herbert Hoover. As Drye notes, vets also were sent to other locations, their activities were still followed by the national media, and their absence from Washington didn't stop other veterans from pressing for payment of the bonus. Sending out-of-work veterans to the Florida Keys as a labor force for highway construction can also be interpreted as an act of New Deal good intentions -- perhaps shortsighted but hardly malicious.

The actions of federal and state officials in the hours before the hurricane struck also are open to some interpretation, but Drye chooses to create villains and heroes -- in particular, Ray Sheldon, the man who managed the three labor camps that housed the veterans. No doubt, Sheldon was largely responsible for failing to arrange the evacuation of the vets well before the storm struck. The more intriguing question, which really isn't addressed in the book, is WHY Sheldon -- who had experienced earlier Florida hurricanes -- didn't order an evacuation train until the storm was almost upon the Keys. Was it pure miscalculation, denial, or was there some bureaucratic purpose in his delay? Here, some informed speculation would have been welcome. Drye doesn't really address the question; he simply portrays Sheldon as indecisive and, post-hurricane, a liar. These he may have been but such a portrayal doesn't get much below the surface of the issue.

This leads to the most glaring deficiency in Drye's work: His book is devoid of footnotes, and the origin of much of his narrative is obscure. (To be fair, the decision to omit footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography may have been the publisher's, not Drye's.) He does acknowledge assistance from several people and lists a "selected bibliography," both of which indicate some of his sources of information; but he doesn't list any of the National Archives resources or other official documents he must have consulted, nor their locations. Nor does he give sources for certain opinionated passages, such as his explanation of how the chairman of the congressional inquiry into the Labor Day disaster rigged the hearings to exonerate Roosevelt's officials. This is a major failing of what should have been a much more useful study of this event. The book also could have used a more comprehensive index and perhaps a "cast of characters" that would provide a convenient reference to the dozens of people mentioned, especially the myriad of bureaucrats. And, particularly for demonstrating the degree of miscalculation and faulty judgment involved in this disaster, a timeline of events also would have been welcomed.

Stories about natural disasters can be approached in essentially three ways: (1) Bravery/survival in the face of adversity, (2) Managerial competence and ineptitude in the face of adversity, and (3) A cautionary tale for the future. Drye does all three, succeeding fairly well on (1), stumbling somewhat on (2), succeeding commendably on (3). If you're a relatively new resident to South Florida (especially the Keys) or know someone who's planning to move there -- of if you think riding out the eye of a hurricane would be a "neat" experience -- this book, with all its flaws, is worth a read. One of the contemporary emergency management officials for the Florida Keys, quoted by Drye, hits it on the head regarding the next big Keys hurricane: "It's not if. It's when." Hurricane Andrew, another "rapidly intensifying" storm, devastated my home town of Homestead in 1992; had the eye made landfall twenty miles further north, it would have flattened Miami. Hurricanes are the price one pays for living along the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and anyone contemplating residence and property ownership in those regions should know what happened on Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys on the evening of Sept. 2, 1935. This book is a good place to start learning how high that price can be. (...)

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Weather, But A Social History, August 31, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (Adventure Press) (Hardcover)

We all think the weather is enormously important, at least as a topic of conversation and complaint. Huge resources are at work to show us satellite pictures of storms; many of us can't get by without taking a regular look at the Weather Channel. Long before such technology was in place, in 1935, it was clear to forecasters on Labor Day weekend that a storm was coming somewhere around Florida, but none of them could have predicted its course accurately, and none would have known it would quickly build into the most powerful storm ever to hit the US. _Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935_ (National Geographic Press) by Willie Drye tells the story of the storm, the havoc it caused, the surprisingly political outcome, and the fascinating lack of lessons learned. It is as exciting a book as one about the weather can be.

The victims of the storm were largely veterans of WWI, "Forgotten Men" who were sent to the Florida Keys to build a highway linking the Keys and the mainland. (They were perhaps also sent there to keep them from protesting the effects of the depression on them.) The men reported to three oceanfront work camps, primitive plywood and canvass bivouacs where they did a lot of drinking and tried to outwit the mosquitoes. There were storm advisories for Labor Day; the Weather Bureau alerted the Keys to the possibility of danger, but no one could have predicted how much. Drye shows that the administrators of the veterans' program, through lack of experience with tropical weather, bad communication, and misplaced optimism, failed to take action until the storm was upon the camps and until the train sent to evacuate them was itself beaten off the tracks. That is only one of the horrors described here as the storm, and the surge of ocean that accompanied it, wrecked the islands and killed over 400 people. Politicians thereafter tried to pin blame on someone, but a clever congressional ally of Roosevelt kept the administration from being tarnished by tricky lawyerly tactics. It was nothing but an act of God.

Drye's epilogue is called "Next Time It'll Be Worse," and he demonstrates that this is certainly so. The Keys have not seen their last monster storm, and since the one of 1935, there has been built a highway linking them all, and there has been a population and property boom, and tourism brings thousands during hurricane season. Hurricanes, even tracked by satellite, are unpredictable, and no one could foresee a similar storm so rapidly growing from a weak tropical disturbance to a gigantic killer. In 1935, a few well timed evacuation trains could have emptied the Keys, but now all the residents getting in their cars to head to the mainland would result in just a long traffic jam. Feasibility studies for making the road a two-lane northbound-only route merely show that cars would run out of gas if tanker trucks could not get south to fill the gas stations. The next storm is coming, and books will record it. Until then, this memorable volume detailing not only the natural history but the social history of a great storm is exciting reading.