Thursday, June 1, 2000 | ||||||||
More preparation may be key to surviving season 1,800 lives lost in one of nation's worst disasters ASSOCIATED PRESS
| ||||||||
| ||||||||
PORT MAYACA - The hundreds of bodies were hauled miles to the north because earthen graves weren't possible in the wet, mucky soil on Lake Okeechobee's southern shores. Sixteen hundred victims of a 1928 hurricane that ranks as one the nation's worst disasters were then cremated and placed in a mass grave. The memory of the rugged pioneers of the swampy Florida Everglades lives on in a remote cemetery two miles east of the grassy levy that blocks Lake Okeechobee from view - and is meant to prevent similar life-taking floods again. The story of the dead is in books and dusty museums in Belle Glade and Pahokee on the lake's south end, too. But, 72 years later, survivors of the powerful hurricane are few. Vernie A. Boots, 86, is one of the last. He was 15 years old on Sept. 16, 1928, an overcast, windy Sunday morning in Lake Harbor, a small settlement at Lake Okeechobee's south end near the Miami Canal. No one was prepared for the storm that blew homes and families apart, Boots said. There was no weather forecasting and no telephones. Radio reports of a deadly hurricane in Puerto Rico were broadcast, but there was no warning the storm was heading toward Florida, Boots said. History books show September was an extremely wet month in the Everglades. More than 21 inches of rain dumped into Lake Okeechobee the first 15 days, the most ever recorded at the time in a single month. Water already was lapping at the top of an earthen levee constructed around southern and eastern portions of the lake to prevent farmlands from flooding, but the dam was never meant as protection from hurricanes. When the howling winds and pounding rain began, Boots' family and friends - 63 in all - sought shelter in a farm building. The building sat three feet off the ground on stilts and the ceiling was about eight feet from the floor, Boots said. ''When the house started floating I was sitting on a ceiling beam and my feet could touch the water,'' recalled Boots, who now resides in an assisted living facility in Tampa. ''It (the building) began to float and hit the road they were building and bounced back a couple of times. Then the building went to pieces and we were forced underwater for a bit.'' ''We just scattered. It was a miracle anybody survived,'' Boots said. Boots and two brothers held onto a piece of the ceiling and floated around and around in circles until help arrived. Their father, mother and 6-year-old brother were swept away. ''We were fortunate. There was another family that had five kids and only one kid and the father survived,'' Boot said. Helen McCormick passed away at age 85 earlier this year. McCormick was 13 when the hurricane blew through the town of Chosen, a small settlement northeast of Boots' family homestead. According to newspaper accounts, McCormick's family - 19 in all - had gathered at her stepfather's home to ride out the storm. About 9 p.m., McCormick saw a huge gush of water pouring into town. As the water rose to as high as 6 feet, someone carved an escape hatch in the house's roof. A piano became the ladder to climb the hatch. ''I was holding onto the roof and calling to my mother. First me, then my brother,'' McCormick said in an interview before her death. ''I'd say, 'Mama, are you there?' and she'd answer, until after a while, she didn't answer anymore.'' The flood uprooted the house. ''I thought it would beat me to death,'' McCormick said. Only McCormick and her stepfather survived. The remains of Boots' mother may be buried in the cemetery in Port Mayaca alongside McCormick's relatives. But as far as Boots knows, her body was never recovered. Those whose bodies were found and identified were stacked like cordwood on docks, then loaded into wagons and hauled miles to the north in dry Port Mayaca. The remains of 1,600 were placed in a mass grave after cremation.
Today, towering cedars and a flapping American flag stand watch over a granite headstone that remembers the hurricane victims.
| ||||||||
All content © 2000 Bradenton.com and may notbe republished without permission. Bradenton.com is a service of the Bradenton Herald in cooperation withfeedback toBradenton.com. |