1935 storm swept away all but memories
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Bernard Russell felt his sister's grip on
his hand pull away in the darkness as the 200 mph wind whipped his body
and waves crashed over him for what seemed like an eternity.
"You went wherever the waves pushed you and wherever the winds
pushed you," he said. "It was so dark, you couldn't see what was going on
and maybe that was good."
A 15-foot-high wall of water washed over Matecumbe Key. Russell's
mother and three sisters perished, but that was just the beginning.
"There were 61 in the Russell family and 50 of them died that
night," Russell, 78, recalled in a recent telephone interview.
The day was even more terrifying. What became known as the Labor Day
hurricane of 1935 cleared every tree and every building off Matecumbe Key,
and destroyed the railroad that connected the Florida Keys to the
mainland.
The official death toll was 423 - 164 civilians and 259 World War I
veterans living in three federal rehabilitation camps.
"There were so many dead people and no place to take them," said
Russell, who was 17 when the hurricane hit. "They stacked them up and
burned them."
The National Hurricane Center says that storm was the strongest to
hit the United States in this century and was the first of two Category 5
hurricanes to hit the United States since record-keeping began.
Category 5 hurricanes pack sustained wind greater than 155 mph,
generate a storm surge higher than 18 feet and cause catastrophic damage.
Camille, the other Category 5 hurricane, devastated the Mississippi coast
in 1969, leaving 256 dead.
The 1935 storm may have been the strongest, but it was far from the
deadliest. The hurricane that flattened Galveston, Texas, in 1900 killed
6,000 to 8,000 people.
After the 1935 storm, Ernest Hemingway visited the Keys and wrote
about the destruction in a scathing article titled "Who Killed the Vets"
for New Masses magazine and in a letter to his editor, Max Perkins.
"We located 69 bodies where no one had been able to get in. Indian
Key was absolutely swept clean, not a blade of grass," he wrote to
Perkins. "We made five trips with provisions for survivors to different
places but nothing but dead men to eat the grub."
Many of the victims drowned, some swept into the Gulf of Mexico,
others sucked back into the Atlantic after the 15-foot wave passed. Some
people were literally sandblasted to death.
Russell ended up on top of a trash pile of trees and other debris.
He still doesn't understand how or why he survived.
"Only the good Lord knows that," he said.
This was the famous hurricane that inspired the 1948 movie, "Key
Largo," with Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, in
which these memorable lines were spoken:
[Rocco is showing strain at the height of the hurricane's force]
Frank McCloud: You don't like it, do you Rocco, the storm? Show it
your gun, why don't you? If it doesn't stop, shoot it.
Ralphie: Hey Curly, what all happens in a hurricane?
Curly: The wind blows so hard the ocean gets up on its hind legs and
walks right across the land.
Toots: And singin' this song: Rain rain, go away, little Ralphie
wants to play.
Doc :)
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