CATASTROPHE: Hurricane

• Share

No city's growth had been more outlandish than Miami—over 250,000 population increase since 1920. No other city had been blessed by the gods like Miami, where millionaires dawdled in blue plashing wavelets beneath azure heavens; where the nation's "400" golfed with royalty until tired, then attended the races for relaxation; where even a mere key lying three miles off the mainland was bought up by men like Carl Fisher (Prestolite) and Harvey Firestone (Akron tireman), transformed into a palmettoed Eden connected with Miami proper by a $1,000,000 causeway over Biscayne Bay. People of the "Magic City" boasted that its indolent sun-kissed shores had never been touched by a hurricane; that Miami was, in fact, well outside the "hurricane belt."

Last week, as everyone knows, the rain and wind gods conspired with Neptune, wiped the "Magic City" from the map.

A day before, seasoned "salts" had noted two curious phenomena. In a flat calm, monster oily waves swept up to the beach, boomed hollowly like bushmen's drums. This was the "dead" swell caused by heavy weather no great distance away. The other occurrence, more inexplicable, was the leaping of porpoises,* long considered by seamen a storm augury. Seasoned "salts" had sought shelter.

The next day the storm-signals were hoisted and speedily changed to hurricane warnings. The barometer was around 29.25, falling fast. The sky was yellowish. Pelicans stood motionless on keys in ridiculous single file, ogled each other. It grew black.

At midnight rain came softly pattering like children's footsteps. The barometer was 28.84. At 1 a.m. the wind blew 65 miles an hour. The barometer was 28.00. At 5:40 a.m. a screaming, slashing demoniacal 130-mile gale raged wilfully, lustily, triumphantly. The barometer was 27.75 (lowest ever recorded in the U. S.). Pelicans, gulls, petrels, royal terns swept in helplessly, crazily, were dashed against walls into broken lumps. The waters of the ocean on one side and of the Bay of Biscayne on the other swept over Bayshore Drive, met. People drowned like trapped puppies to the frivolous dirge of tinkling glass.

There had come a lull. Creatures crept from wreckage. They pawed dazedly over tangled debris, stumbled on dead monster fishes, sought kin-bodies. Down in the harbor the waves scarcely abated— wrenched, tore, harried, sank ships. Over in rich idle Hollywood, one lone building, the Masonic Temple, stood drunkenly. As if enraged by such impertinence, the hurricane struck again.

So, already broken, twisted, blasted, Miami was rewrecked. The waters of rivers were forced back to an unprecedentedly low level, then urged headlong overwhelmingly forward to founder grounded vessels. Fort Lauderdale, Pompano,* Hialea, Dania, Homestead, Coral Gables, Hallandale, Floranada, Ojus—all were devastated.