HURRICANE’S TOLL

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1935, Page 5

HURRICANE’S TOLL

FLORIDA DEVASTATION DEATH ROLL REACHES 400 WRECKAGE OF RAILWAY STORM BEGINS TO ABATE By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 8.30 p.m. Miami (Florida), Sept. 4. The loss of life was between 400 and 500 in the Florida Keys area, over which walls of water as high as 15 feet poured continuously for many hours as the recent hurricane raged up from the Atlantic across the tip of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. The devastation was most severe in the camps of war veterans engaged in building a highway down the keys to Key West. One camp was demolished and another was reduced to a mass of wreckage. A rescue train sent on Monday to bring back the veterans is reported to have been wrecked. It was later reported that all of the crew of the train were saved. Many died on Mateipmbe Key in the collapse of an hotel used as an emergency hospital With 40 patients, only 11 being saved. Flying timbers caused many casualties. The survivors dug holes into the earth under the ties of railroad tracks to protect their head from flying debris. Below Tavernier to Vaca Keys, the region bearing the brunt of the hurricane, nothing made by man remains undamaged. The Florida East Coast railway, linking the mainland with Key West, is a mass of twisted wreckage. , All Government forces have joined the Red Cross in rushing medical aid into the stricken areas. The raging tropical hurricane headed back in a north-easterly direction across the State to-night with apparently diminishing force. “ALL WELL” ON DIXIE PASSENGERS TAKEN OFF Rec. 8.30 p.m. Miami, Sept. 4. A message from a Morgan Line official reported “all well” aboard the liner Dixie, which went ashore during the hurricane with 400 persons on board. This morning the weather moderated considerably and the rescue vessels started the transfer of passengers. A later, message says that a pilot, Mr. Roy Keeler, flew over the Dixie and reported that the work of removing the passengers had begun by four of the nine steamers standing by. The rough Seas were obviously hampering the work. A rising sea and rain halted the rescue work to-night. The owners’ agents reported that 164 out of 384 persons on board the Dixie had been saved.