This is the first full-length book that details the tragic hurricane of 1935, one of the greatest disasters of our time, and places it in historical context. Interviews with survivors, including workers, local business owners, and government officials, and previously unavailable documents from the investigation contribute to the historical relevance of this account and present the disaster from multiple points of view. At the height of the Great Depression, disaster struck: a hurricane with 200 mile-per-hour winds and a storm surge of more than 20 feet--the "storm of the century"--according to weather officials. In two days the storm killed more than 400 people, devastating a community of workers and raising a storm of controversy in its wake. At the center of the story are hundreds of down-and-out World War I veterans who were sent to the Keys to work on a federal construction project; a highway linking Miami and Key West. More than 300 of them would die in the hurricane of 1935. But the story of this catastrophe goes far beyond the death toll.
Told from the point of view of multiple eyewitnesses including workers, business owners, and government officials, Storm of the Century is the first in-depth explanation of how the economic crisis of the Depression, political expediency, the best and worst of human nature, and the unimaginable power of the strongest hurricane in history ever to strike the United States combined to cause national tragedy in the reomote Florida Keys. When reports of a hurricane began reaching Florida in late August of 1935, Federal Administrators ignored warnings and waited until it was too late to try to get the workers out of harm's way. The political maneuvering that followed the tragedy obscured details of the event and very nearly cost Franklin Delano Roosevelt the election of 1936. Will Drye tells of the astonishing power of this once-in-a-lifetime storm and its aftermath with gripping detail.
- ISBN10 0792280105
- ISBN13 9780792280101
- Publish Date 1 August 2002
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 12 November 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint National Geographic Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 324
- Language English