On this date in 1926, people in South Florida were nervously watching the sky. Two days before, the Miami Herald had reported that a hurricane was not going to hit Florida. The depressed real estate market could not afford the negative publicity that a storm would bring, so it was not even referred to as a hurricane. In Miami, Weather Bureau Office Chief Richard Gray had received word of a hurricane north of the Leeward Islands, heading west in the general direction of Florida. The 17th found bright blue skies over Florida with no sign of the hurricane. Nothing else was heard from the hurricane until that night, when it struck Grand Turks Island in the Bahamas. The Weather Bureau in Washington issued hurricane warnings for Florida after 11 p.m., almost as an afterthought.
Gray received the warning by teletype and immediately hoisted the familiar hurricane warning flags, made difficult by the winds that were already blowing strongly. The warning had come too late. The hurricane had strengthened rapidly during the evening hours and had winds of over 130 mph. Most residents had already gone to bed. Winds reached hurricane force by 1 a.m. Wind gusts to 132 mph were recorded at Miami Beach. The eye reached Miami Beach around 6:10 in the morning. Miami was in the eye for about 45 minutes and the barometer bottomed out at 27.61 inches, which was a new U.S. record at the time. During the calm, residents poured into the streams and a stream of cars started across the causeway from Miami Beach to the mainland, much to the dismay of Gray. He yelled to people on the streets that the other side of the hurricane was yet to come.
Sustained winds were measured at 123 mph for 5 minutes and 138 mph for 2 minutes and may have been higher, since the anemometer was destroyed at 8:12 a.m. A storm surge of 11.7 feet above normal devastated much of the beach and city. 243 people died. Damage totaled $12 million. Researchers have studied past hurricanes and have calculated what their damage would be in modern dollars. According to researcher Chris Landsea, the Great Miami Hurricane would have been the most destructive. The 1926 storm was weaker that Hurricane Andrew of 1992, but was much larger. Calculations are that damage today from a storm like the 1926 hurricane would have been a staggering $80 billion. There was a tremendous outcry in Florida about the poor warnings from Washington.
Gray received the warning by teletype and immediately hoisted the familiar hurricane warning flags, made difficult by the winds that were already blowing strongly. The warning had come too late. The hurricane had strengthened rapidly during the evening hours and had winds of over 130 mph. Most residents had already gone to bed. Winds reached hurricane force by 1 a.m. Wind gusts to 132 mph were recorded at Miami Beach. The eye reached Miami Beach around 6:10 in the morning. Miami was in the eye for about 45 minutes and the barometer bottomed out at 27.61 inches, which was a new U.S. record at the time. During the calm, residents poured into the streams and a stream of cars started across the causeway from Miami Beach to the mainland, much to the dismay of Gray. He yelled to people on the streets that the other side of the hurricane was yet to come.
Sustained winds were measured at 123 mph for 5 minutes and 138 mph for 2 minutes and may have been higher, since the anemometer was destroyed at 8:12 a.m. A storm surge of 11.7 feet above normal devastated much of the beach and city. 243 people died. Damage totaled $12 million. Researchers have studied past hurricanes and have calculated what their damage would be in modern dollars. According to researcher Chris Landsea, the Great Miami Hurricane would have been the most destructive. The 1926 storm was weaker that Hurricane Andrew of 1992, but was much larger. Calculations are that damage today from a storm like the 1926 hurricane would have been a staggering $80 billion. There was a tremendous outcry in Florida about the poor warnings from Washington.
on September 17, 2006, 10:58 pm
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