Qualla: 1935 Labor Day Hurricane

1935 Labor Day Hurricane: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The evacuation train arrived too late. At 8:20 on the evening of September 2, 1935, the eleven-car rescue train pulled into the Islamorada station on Upper Matecumbe Key just as the wind shifted from northeast to southeast and the storm surge arrived from the Atlantic. Within minutes, every car except the locomotive and tender was swept off the tracks. The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 was a Category 5 monster, one of only four storms of that intensity to strike the contiguous United States. It recorded the lowest barometric pressure ever measured on land in the Western Hemisphere and left the Upper Florida Keys stripped to bare coral. When it was over, nearly 500 people were dead, and the question of who was responsible would haunt the Roosevelt administration for months.

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1935 Labor Day Hurricane: A Storm That Defied Warning

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The disturbance formed near the Turks Islands at the end of August and intensified with extraordinary speed. By September 1, it reached hurricane strength near Andros Island in the Bahamas. A Cuban military pilot, Captain Leonard Povey, flew his open-cockpit Curtiss Hawk biplane ...

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1935 Labor Day Hurricane: The Veterans on the Keys

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three work camps housed 695 veterans on payroll in the Upper Keys, part of a federal program to keep unemployed World War I veterans occupied and away from Washington, where Bonus March protests had embarrassed the government. The camps, established by Harry Hopkins's Federal Eme...

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1935 Labor Day Hurricane: Obliteration

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The storm surge that swept over the Upper Keys reached extraordinary heights, submerging the low-lying islands entirely. The town of Islamorada was obliterated. On Long Key, the hurricane destroyed a fishing camp, a hotel, the railroad, and virtually all vegetation. Ernest Heming...

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1935 Labor Day Hurricane: The Dead and the Reckoning

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The final count was devastating: 485 dead, including 257 veterans and 228 civilians. Bodies were scattered across the Keys and decomposed rapidly in the subtropical heat. Public health officials ordered cremations at dozens of sites throughout the Matecumbe Keys. In Miami, 109 bo...

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1935 Labor Day Hurricane: Monuments in Coral and Stone

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A memorial stands at mile marker 82 in Islamorada, near where the post office once stood. Designed by the Federal Art Project and built from native Keys limestone by the Works Progress Administration, it was unveiled on November 14, 1937. Its frieze depicts palm trees bending in ...

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