Hemingway's Hurricane

I read everything I can get my hands on about Ernest Hemingway.  This book details Hemingway's involvement in the aftermath of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that struck the Florida Keys. The book also gives an account of the hurricane and the great destruction and loss of life it caused. 

The country in 1935 was in the middle of the Great Depression. One of the largest groups of people out of work were the World War I veterans. As part of the Public Works for Veterans program many of these men were sent to the Florida Keys to work on construction of the Overseas Highway. 

The men were housed in ramshackle houses and tents in several camps on Windley Key and Lower Matecumbe Key. 

The storm formed as a weak tropical depression on August 29th and slowly moved west. This was 1935 so there was no Weather Channel...no satellites..nothing like we have today. As the storm moved west and then north phenomenal strengthening occured. 

When the storm made landfall in the middle Keys on Monday Sept 2nd it was, and still is the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States in recorded history. 

An evacuation train was (finally) dispatched to the Keys to evacuate the Veterans who had no means of escape...but it was too late

Winds in excess of 200 mph and a storm surge of over 18 feet swept over the low lying islands and washed the train off the track. Only the very heavy engine remained on the track. 

Destruction and devastation followed

The next day the news of the tragedy spread

 On the morning after the storm Ernest Hemingway made his way from his Whitehead Street home on Key West on his boat the Pilar up to Islamorada  and was shocked at what he found. He assisted in rescue and relief efforts. It is estimated between and 400 and 600 people died including 259 WWI veterans. Hemingway was incensed with the government's slow response in rescuing the Vets. He wrote several articles about the event. 

A beautiful scale recreation of the Pilar can be found at World Wide Sportsman on Islamorada

An excerpt of one of his articles:

It is not necessary to go into the deaths of the civilians and their families since they were on the Keys of their own free will; They made their living there, had property and knew the hazards involved. But the veterans had been sent there; they had no opportunity to leave, nor any protection against hurricanes; and they never had a chance for their lives. Who sent nearly a thousand war veterans, many of them husky, hard-working and simply out of luck, but many of them close to the border of pathological cases, to live in frame shacks on the Florida Keys in hurricane months?

Hemingway's involvement sparked great debate over who was responsible for the fate of the Vets. 

The Hurricane Monument stands between Mile Markers 81 and 82 on Islamorada. In 1937 the cremated remains of over 300 people killed in the storm were placed within the tiled crypt in front of the monument.

Eventually the Overseas Highway was built...the damage to the railroad was never repaired....