The Labor Day Hurricane was a very compact, intense hurricane that caused catastrophic destruction in the Florida Keys on September 2, 1935. It is the strongest hurricane ever to strike the United States.
| hurricane | |
|---|---|
| Formed | August 29, 1935 |
| Dissipated | September 10, 1935 |
Development and landfall
Tropical storm (39–73 mph, 63–118 km/h)
Category 1 (74–95 mph, 119–153 km/h)
Category 2 (96–110 mph, 154–177 km/h)
Category 3 (111–129 mph, 178–208 km/h)
Category 4 (130–156 mph, 209–251 km/h)
Category 5 (≥157 mph, ≥252 km/h)
Unknown
Extratropical cyclone, remnant low, tropical disturbance, or monsoon depressionThe storm was born as a small tropical disturbance, due east of Florida in the Bahamas in late August. The disturbance drifted west through the islands toward the Gulf Stream, and U.S. weather forecasters became aware of a possible tropical storm approaching.
In the area of Andros Island in the Bahamas, on the edge of the Gulf Stream, the disturbance began to strengthen. It intensified without pause for a day and a half, while its track made a gentle turn to the northwest, toward Islamorada in the Upper Keys. As Labor Day Monday, September 2, turned to night, the storm was at its full intensity. It struck around 8 p.m.
The maximum sustained wind speed (a standard of comparison for hurricane intensity) at landfall was originally thought to have been 185 mph (300 km/h). Reanalysis studies conducted by the NOAA Hurricane Research Division (HRD) concluded that the maximum sustained winds were more likely around 160 mph (260 km/h) at landfall [1]. A central pressure was reliably reported as 26.35 inHg (892 hPa). This was the record low pressure for a hurricane anywhere in the Western Hemisphere until surpassed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005. An unconfirmed report gave the minimum central pressure as low as 26.00 inches of mercury (880 hPa).
| Most intense landfalling tropical cyclones in the United States Intensity is measured solely by central pressure | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | System | Season | Landfall pressure |
| 1 | "Labor Day" | 1935 | 892 mbar (hPa) |
| 2 | Camille | 1969 | 900 mbar (hPa) |
| Yutu | 2018 | ||
| 4 | Michael | 2018 | 919 mbar (hPa) |
| 5 | Katrina | 2005 | 920 mbar (hPa) |
| Maria | 2017 | ||
| 7 | Andrew | 1992 | 922 mbar (hPa) |
| 8 | "Indianola" | 1886 | 925 mbar (hPa) |
| 9 | "Guam" | 1900 | 926 mbar (hPa) |
| 10 | "Florida Keys" | 1919 | 927 mbar (hPa) |
| Source: HURDAT,[1] Hurricane Research Division[2] | |||
The main transportation route linking the Florida Keys to mainland Florida was a single railroad line, the Florida Overseas Railroad portion of the Florida East Coast Railway. A 10-car evacuation train sent down from Homestead was washed off the track by storm surge and high winds on Lower Matecumbe Key. The train was supposed to rescue a group of World War I veterans, who, as part of a government relief program, were building a new road bridge in the Upper Keys. The train did not reach the waiting veterans before the storm did.
In total, at least 423 people (164 residents and 259 veterans employed on the road project)(1) were killed by the hurricane. Bodies were recovered as far away as Flamingo and Cape Sable on the southwest tip of the Florida mainland. In a lucky coincidence, about 350 of the 718 veterans living in the Keys work camps were in Miami to attend a Labor Day baseball game when the storm hit.(2) If not for this outing, many more of the men, whose barracks in the Keys were flimsy shacks, might have been killed by the storm.
After striking the Keys, the hurricane continued up the west coast of Florida and landed again on the Florida Panhandle as a category 2 hurricane on September 4. It then passed over Georgia (where it continued to cause wind and flood damage), South Carolina, North Carolina and emerged back into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. The storm then continued until it became extratropical south of Greenland on September 10th.
Aftermath
| Most intense Atlantic hurricanes () | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Hurricane | Season | Pressure | ||
| hPa | inHg | ||||
| 1 | Wilma | 2005 | 882 | 26.05 | |
| 2 | Gilbert | 1988 | 888 | 26.23 | |
| 3 | "Labor Day" | 1935 | 892 | 26.34 | |
| 4 | Rita | 2005 | 895 | 26.43 | |
| 5 | Milton | 2024 | 897 | 26.49 | |
| 6 | Allen | 1980 | 899 | 26.55 | |
| 7 | Camille | 1969 | 900 | 26.58 | |
| 8 | Katrina | 2005 | 902 | 26.64 | |
| 9 | Mitch | 1998 | 905 | 26.73 | |
| Dean | 2007 | ||||
| Source: HURDAT[1] | |||||
The hurricane left a path of near-complete destruction in the Upper Keys centered on what is today the village of Islamorada. Nearly every structure was demolished; bridges and railway embankments were washed away. The links—rail, road, and ferry boats—that chained the islands together were broken.
The Islamorada area had been devastated, though the hurricane's path was less than that of many tropical cyclones. Its eye was eight miles across, and the fiercest winds extended only 15 miles right of the center, less than 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which was also a relatively small and catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. Many parts of the Keys, a chain of islands more than 125 miles long from south of Miami to Key West, were practically untouched. There was no damage in Key West, or in most of the lower and far upper Keys.
Craig Key, Long Key, Upper Matecumbe and Lower Matecumbe keys (from approximately mile 60 to 80 on today's highway mileposts) suffered the worst. In this area, hundreds of bodies were caught in wreckage and mangrove thickets along the shore. By the third day after the storm, corpses had swelled and split open in the subtropical heat, according to rescue workers. Public health officials ordered plain wood coffins holding the dead to be stacked and burned in several locations.
The U.S. Coast Guard and other state and federal agencies organized evacuation and relief efforts. Boats and airplanes carried injured survivors to Miami. The railroad would never be rebuilt, but temporary bridges and ferry landings were under construction as soon as materials arrived, and within a few years a roadway, for the first time, linked the entire Keys chain to mainland Florida.
The memorial
Standing on U.S. Highway 1 at mile marker 82 in Islamorada, near where Islamorada's post office had been, is a simple monument designed by the Florida Division of the Federal Art Project and constructed using Keys limestone by the Works Progress Administration. Unveiled in 1937 with more than 4,000 people in attendance, a frieze depicts palm trees amid curling waves, fronds bent in the wind. In front of the sculpture, a ceramic-tile mural of the Keys covers a stone crypt, which holds victims' ashes from the makeshift funeral pyres.
Personal observations
In the Florida Keys, the effects of the intense storm were reported by a number of survivors. One was J.E. Duane, caretaker of the Long Key Fishing Camp and a cooperative observer for the U.S. Weather Bureau. Duane recorded barometric readings and conditions during the passage of the storm, near where the exact center crossed the Keys on September 2.
At 6:45 p.m., he wrote, the barometer was 27.90 inches and the wind was backing to the northwest. "A beam 6 by 8 inches, about 18 feet long, was blown from north side of camp, about 300 yards, through observer's house, wrecking it and nearly striking 3 persons. Water 3 feet deep from top of railroad grade, or about 16 feet."
After the caretaker's house was destroyed, Duane and about 20 others at the camp took refuge in the main lodge building, and then in a cottage as structures failed in the intense winds and battering waves. At 9:20 p.m., Duane reported that the wind abated as the center of the storm passed over the island.
- During this lull the sky is clear to northward, stars shining brightly and a very light breeze continued; no flat calm. About the middle of the lull, which lasted a timed 55 minutes, the sea began to lift up, it seemed, and rise very fast; this from ocean side of camp. I put my flashlight out on sea and could see walls of water which seemed many feet high. I had to race fast to regain entrance of cottage, but water caught me waist deep, although writer was only about 60 feet from doorway of cottage. Water lifted cottage from its foundations, and it floated.
After the eye passage, the winds resumed even stronger than before. Duane was blown out of the cottage and into the flood waters. "...got hung up in broken fronds of coconut tree and hung on for dear life. I was then struck by some object and knocked unconscious." He awoke the next afternoon and found himself "lodged about 20 feet above ground" in the tree.
In the Bogart-Bacall hurricane film Key Largo the character played by Lionel Barrymore describes his experiences in the great 1935 hurricane.
Records
The Labor Day Hurricane is the strongest hurricane known to have struck the United States, and one of the strongest recorded landfalls worldwide. It is the only storm known to make U.S. landfall with a minimum central pressure below 900 hPa; only two others have struck the U.S. with Category 5 strength (with winds over 155 mph). It remains the third-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, behind storms that weakened before making landfall on the U.S. coast.
Notes
(1): Report of 1935 Hurricane Victims, George J. Rawlins, Coroner, Islamorada, Florida (from Congressional Inquiry H.R. 9486)
(2): Hurricane by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Rinehart & Company 1958)
See also
External links
Reference
- Hemingway's Hurricane by Phil Scott (ISBN 0071453326) International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press, 2005.
- ^ a b "Atlantic hurricane best track (HURDAT version 2)" (Database). United States National Hurricane Center. April 5, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Landsea, Chris; Anderson, Craig; Bredemeyer, William; et al. (January 2022). Continental United States Hurricanes (Detailed Description). Re-Analysis Project (Report). Miami, Florida: Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Hurricane Research Division. Retrieved November 8, 2024.