Storm's path remains scarred after 75 years..1928 hurricane

[SoCalDem]

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/fcstorymod/ext/Feature%20Articles/ap/tropical_weather/SIG=11qmkmcua/*http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030905/5473481s.htm

Storm's path remains scarred after 75 years Black residents bore the brunt when hurricane blasted Fla. in '28
By Deborah Sharp
USA TODAY


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Vera Farrington grew up hearing tales of the storm of 1928, a hurricane that pounded the mansions of Palm Beach, then swept more than 2,000 farm workers to their deaths 45 miles inland.

The storm that struck 75 years ago this month is often called the ''Okeechobee Hurricane,'' for the Florida lake that rose and swallowed surrounding farms.


The National Hurricane Center is expected to increase the storm's official death toll to 2,500, from 1,836, in time for the anniversary Sept. 16. That makes it the nation's second-deadliest hurricane; a storm in Galveston, Texas, in 1900 killed 8,000. The revised toll is part of a project to re-evaluate historic storms using modern research.

Today, researchers believe that the 1928 storm was a powerful category-4 hurricane that packed winds of 145 mph. (The strongest hurricanes, category-5 storms, have winds above 155 mph.)

The Okeechobee storm's impact can still be seen -- in the South Florida landscape and in the divisions between black and white.



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[ClintonTyree]

1. This was a sad chapter...............

in the history of south Florida. I recently visited the area after having seen a documentary on PBS down here (Okeechobee is about 40 miles south of me). Not much has changed there, the population is still predominantly Black, Hispanic and poor. Having seen the documentary, it wan't difficult to feel the history, the suffering and the inequality that did and does exist there. It was the same feeling I had when I visited Rosewood, to the north of the state. The eerie feeling of the tortured and helpless souls that once inhabited the area, and the anger associated with such gross stupidity and segregationism. We still haven't learned our lessons.

[Merlin]

2. This was a cat 4 storm. Isabel is cat 5! n/t

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