A 10-car evacuation train was sent for the veterans, but after delays it arrived just about the same time the storm struck, around 8 p.m. Several hundred World War I veterans were in the path of the hurricane, too, living in tent camps to work on the Overseas Highway as part of a federal program during the Great Depression. we would track the path of the various hurricanes and tropical storms that were predicted to hit. An unknown number of visitors also were in that part of the Upper Keys for the holiday weekend. Plumage of Pomp: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. 2, that trouble was on the way because of the low readings on their barometers.Īt the time, about 300 people lived on the four islands of Lower Matecumbe, Upper Matecumbe, Windley Key and Plantation Key, from mile markers 73 to 90 on the Overseas Highway. 2, 1935, remains the measuring stick for Florida hurricanes. The parents of some of the seven survivors knew by late afternoon of Labor Day, Sept. But the Labor Day Hurricane, which hit the Florida Keys with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph on Sept. (NCD) (NCD) Hurricane Ian is the latest major hurricane to make landfall in Florida, coming onshore near Sanibel Island on Wednesday. 'Nobody really thought we were going to get a hurricane,' said Everett Albury, 81, whose family took a leisurely drive from their home in Tavernier to Lower Matecumbe in the family's 1928 Model A Ford.īy the time those in Jacksonville got the forecast right, it was too late for most residents to evacuate from the remote islands.

1935 labor day hurricane track