STRICKEN LAND

Southland Times, Issue 20015, 1 November 1926, Page 7

STRICKEN LAND

GALE AND FLOOD IN FLORIDA. San Francisco, September 22. Lajer narratives regarding the lamentable scenes in stricken Florida agree that the devastation resembles sliambles of a war, and one refugee, Harold W. Cole, manager of the Florida East Coast Railway, who reached St. Augustine, Florida, said: “If they tell me there are a thousand persons dead, I would not doubt it. War can be no more terrible than the devastation wrought, Miami is smashed, Coral Gables is badly wrecked. Hollywood is badly hurt, while Fort Lauderdale, Danin and Pompano are practically levelled. “Tlie storm began at 2.30 on Saturday morning, and it continued until 6.30 with the wind blowing at. about seventy to eighty miles an hour. It was terrible lieyond description. Our window crashed in, falling tiles from surrounding homes crashed against our house, and afterwards we saw that these, blown by the wind, with incredible velocity, made gashes in the house that an axe could not have made. “My wife was badly cut about the arms by flying glass. The roof of the frame building swayed and rocked as if it were ready to fly off. The terror of the thing was so great that it beggared description. We were in total darkness in a foot of water on the living room floor, and prayed as we never prayed before. “At 6.30 o’clock there was a lull; the wind ceased and the sky was clear. People left their homes to survey the wreckage and hundreds of people left Miami Beach in their automobiles to come across the causeway to the city proper. At 7 o’clock the disaster came. The wind blew with an estimated velocity of 120 to 130 miles. There was water everywhere, and some people thought there was a tidal wave. I think it was the cutting spray driven from the ocean and bay by a wind of such force that the city was inundated. ISLANDS SWEPT.

“I do not believe that anyone will ever know the number of dead. People coming across the causeway from Miami Beach, before the second and more deadly hurricane struck, must, necessarily have been touted into the bay with their automobiles. The beautiful little islands in Biscayne Bay have been swept clean. “Conditions were improving when I left there, and the domestic water was turned on in some places, but there were no electric lights, and as great poles were snapped off like little twigs and the wire twisted into balls or hanging in the streets, it will take some time to get lights and power, although construction gangs were soon, started in bringing some order among the frightful situation of desolation.” As the isolated regions became accessible more injured refugees were found and more bodies were located, and a late report from Miami stated that the actual damage to homes and business buildings was estimated at 50,000,000 dollars, but many held that the value of the millions of priceless palms and pines which were ujirooted or levelled to the ground would be double the damage estimate. Paved roads, sidewalks, development gateways and club houses also had to be added, as well as the loss to business firms by the cessation of work, due either to storm or lack of power or water. GALLANT RELIEF WORK.

The Red Cross was the open sesame through the traffic, and sirens with which the cars were equipped screeched warning as the workers whirled from one tragic spot to another to leave drugs and bandages, or to drop off medical men and nurses.

Ambtdances, hearses from mortuary establishments, and newspafjer meu also had the right of way. Scarcely a city or town in the storm area escaped the death toll left in the wake of the hurricane. The greatest havoc was done in Miami and Hollywood, where more than 300 were known to have been killed and drowned by the rushing waters which swept in from the Gulf Stream.

The continuation of martial law wan essential owing to looters pursuing their disgusting work of robbery far and wide. A number of ghouls were shot at Hialeah, a suburb of Miami. After being without water for about forty-eight hours, thousands of refugees stood in line for medicines, bread, water and fuel, doled out in small portions from the first stores of relief supplies to arrive from the northward.

Miami, a favourite winter rendezvous for northern society, was a shambles, and Miami Beach, lying three miles to the eastward, across Biscayne Bay, presented a similar appearance. Miami’s picturesque waterfront took on a grotesque ap[>earance, with yachts, pleasure craft, coastguard boats and ships of all kinds cast high and dry along the shores. As already stated, in Royal Palm Park, one block from the water’s edge, a large steamer lay on its side, and scattered about the Royal Palms was a number of smaller craft. Scarcely a building in the city remained undamaged, while every pane of glass in the area was reported to have been broken. The tower of the Miami Daily News buildings, fronting on Biscayne Bay, was blown off, and the 21-storey Meyer-Kiser building, badly damaged, but despite all this mountain of debris and disorder, hastily recruited forces of men began the first task of clearing the gigantic heaps of wreckage. CHILDREN SEEK PARENTS. Hollywood, located 17 miles north of Miami, was a most pitiful scene throughout the hurricane-swept area. Scantily clad children cried for their parents, while great numbers of homeless, many clad in bathing suits, searched among the wreckage for traces of missing relatives. Temporary relief headquarters were established in the City Hall, and the Hollywood Hotel, the latter virtually being the only structure in the city which escaped the fury of the storm. Long lines of people waited at the Red Cross relief units for scanty supplies, meted out only to i>eraons showing written permission from civil and military authorities. The entire sanitary system was wrecked by the storm and sanitary inspectors declared a large quantity of drugs and disinfectants was necessary to stave off an epidemic. Surgeons, who had been working night and day attending thousands of injured, reported they were badly in need of tetanus serum. At Ford Lauderdale 7000 persons waited throughout, the days following the storm in the bread lines established by local and outside relief agencies. Six hundred injured were packed into three structures left intact by the hurricane, but twenty of the victims were fatally hurt in the