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A Special Moment In Time: The Five Terrible Events of 1926 Part III

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By Seth H. Bramson

Over the past two columns, readers of Mr. Berkwitt’s website have learned of the first four of the five terrible events that made 1926 one of the two (along with 1896) most memorable, and to some extent, legendary years in Greater Miami’s illustrious and glorious history. Just by surviving those events, which occurred in and during Miami’s thirtieth year as a city, Homestead’s 13th, and Miami Beach’s eleventh year as an incorporated municipality (Miami Beach was incorporated as a town in 1915 and became a city in 1917)—the region proved its mettle and was prepared thereafter for anything and everything that fate and the four winds could throw at it. But that, dear readers, did not make the recovery any easier.

As we have noted, the four events leading up to the catastrophic final and most horrendously disastrous event—the terrible hurricane of September 17th and 18th–were the capsizing of the Danish sailing schooner, Prinz Valdemar (at the time the largest vessel ever to enter Miami’s port) at the entrance to the turning basin of the Miami harbor in January; the embargoing of itself by the Florida East Coast Railway; the subsequent negative nationwide publicity, and the default and abandonment of their land, buildings and property purchased by literally thousands of buyers throughout the country. Miami and Miami Beach might—and probably could have and would—have recovered from all of those setbacks had it not been for the fifth and final of the five terrible events which, in sum, proved to be the harbinger of the Great Depression that would envelop the country three years later.

Although there were muted warnings several days ahead of the storm that “a hurricane is coming” few people knew what the significance of the warnings was, and as the radio broadcasts and newspapers (there were four daily papers in Miami at the time) did not seem to be expressing a great deal of concern (unlike today’s hysterical, shrieking, hyperventilating talking weather-heads, or, as the late, great NEILGOD would refer to them, “the weather fairies”) the warnings, which seemed mostly to be coming from ships at sea that had encountered the storm, were taken far too lightly. That lack of concern, that complete misunderstanding of, and disregard for, the power of the storm, would bring a hideously high death toll and immense property damage to all of Greater Miami.

The storm would roar out of the Atlantic on the evening of September 17th and would, for hour after terrible hour, blast away at Miami Beach, Miami, Coral Gables, Fulford-by-the-Sea (where it destroyed the Fisher-Fulford Speedway, the famous all –wood, steeply banked, used for only one race automobile race track at approximately today’s Northeast 18th and 19th Avenues and 188th—189th Streets, the site of the track now under the water of Sky Lake), the Shoreland Company’s properties (today’s Miami Shores) as well as a good bit more of then-Dade County as well as much of eastern Broward County.

L. F. Reardon, a noted journalist of the time, would go on to write, illustrate and publish a hard cover book detailing the horrors of the storm. His own home, although not completely destroyed by the storm, was severely damaged. Reardon’s book, one of several composed following that terrible natural disaster, vividly describes not only what he went through but what the area was like—the sheer, utter devastation—following the storm.

“Bringing it all down to brass tacks?” Beyond awful: More than 600 people killed, hundreds of buildings destroyed, Coast Guard cutters and other large ships thrown up on land, sand piled to the third floor of the then-brand new Roney Plaza Hotel at 23rd Street and Collins Avenue, the Flagler System’s Royal Palm Hotel on the banks of the Miami River so badly damaged that it would, except for about thirty days in the 1928 season, close for good following the storm.

Even Hurricane Andrew, with all its horrors, was equaled or outdone by the vicious and never-to-be-forgotten Miami hurricane of September 17th and 18th, 1926.

From a personal point-of-view, I think that what, today, distresses me the most is when the usual gaggle of front-running-phonies and know-nothings tell us to “just wait! We’re gonna get ‘the big one!’” they chortly almost gleefully. Of course, for those damn fools who are totally bereft or any knowledge of our area’s history, and who, like those who are still trying to get listeners to believe in “the orange blossom myth” or that “that was Al Capone’s hideaway,” of which he didn’t have any, they neither know about nor care about what our history is, what is has entailed, and how we have suffered through, on so many different occasions, “the big one.”

It is at that point that I turn with a cynical look and say, “you really don’t know what the hell you are talking about, do you,” following which I am generally met with a blank or befuddled stare. And it is generally, at that point, that I inform them as to what the truth is and what the facts are regarding said “big one.”

Perhaps, gentlemen and ladies, we will look into not only “the big oneS” but, and also, how many times we have been brutalized by them. Not pretty, but let’s straighten out said front-running phonies who are, generally, always wrong and never in doubt. See you next week, and y’all take care now, heah?!!

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