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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida.
St. Lucie Tape #tJh /A,
Carolyn Adams
June 16, 1967
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I believe that every boy and girl in our schools ought to have a good
understanding of American history. Someone has said that wise
citizenship without a sense of history would be like trying to be a wise
navigator without a compass. I think it is a sad commentary on our
schools and colleges that some of them will allow a student to graduate
without ever having had a course in American history. People get
teaching certificates and can teach in our schools without ever having
studied American history. And that's something, really, we ought to be
thinking about as a historical society. But I'm not going to get off
on that tangent now. Now I could talk on it for a while because it's
something I feel very strongly about. I do think if our boys and girls
knew something about American history they'd grow up to be better citizens
and they would be better equipped in the future to help preserve our
precious freedoms and our wonderful American heritage. We had a billion
history students here with us tonight and I know because I had
when she was in the eighth grade and was taking U.S. history in my class.
I think the nicest thing that could happen to any teacher would be to
have a whole roomful of people like her. She has just finished her
junior year in our local high school and recently she won a third prize
in a state wide history essay contest sponsored by our Florida Historical
Society. The title of her essay was'The Great Disaster of 1928'and I
think winning third prize in the whole state of Florida is really
something to be proud of because she was competing with students not only
in her own class but in the senior classes as well)all over Florida.
When I was at the historical convention in Key West and heard her name
mentioned as one of the prize winners.I was really happy.because I feel
St. Lucie Tape 4tc /6-9
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as if she partly belongs to meanyway. She is Carolyn Adams, daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Wade Adams of Fort Pierce. Carolyn, I'm delighted to be
able to present you with this fifteen dollar check as third prize in
our state historical contest. Carolyn never has received her copy
of her essay from the contest headquarters, but lhse brought some of
her notes tonight and -is going to read them to you if you'd like to
hear. They're a couple of pages.
C. W.: The Great Disaster of 1928: Sunday morning overcast
in considering the season of the year rather cool. The melting
which the previous day had crossed the lake dwellers and everglades
former with its had increased somewhat in intensity.
Scattering clouds drifted softly. This was
September 16 1928. It was the Last day of life for almost two thousand
people in the southeastern shores of Lake Ockeechobee. There had been
news of a hurricane ripping up Puerto Rico and killing a lot of
people but there was no danger of it hitting Florida. Lake Ockeechobee
was now over sixteen feet in elevation and by September 10 the lake
had risen three feet in thirty days. Many people were asked if they were
going to leave the lake and they answered,"No, I reckon not. Go ahead.
I'll be here when you come back." the largest town suffered
the greatest amount of property damage and lose of life. Two hotels
provided the principal haven of refuge where the people fled before the
hurricane hit. The period of lull was an hour and a half and the storm
advanced at fifteen miles per hour. The eye was twenty five miles in
diameter. The velocity of the aofshe wind is considered to have been
such that this may be rated as one of the most intense storms of this
kind. Anemometers blew away before recording more than ninety six
St. Lucie Tape Mc/64/
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miles an hour and an observer at canal point estimated a maximum velociy
to have been a hundred and fifty miles-anw hour and a hundred and sixty
miles per hour before the southeast, at ten fourty five which isfourty
five minutes after the lull. The damage that this hurricanedid is
u unbelievable. Even greater is the death. In WinteHaven a lady was
found four miles from her home and she had clung to a fragment of
her houseboat for nine and a half hours. When discovered she was unconscious
and was clad only in the waistband of her skirt. One man was carried
three and a half miles and was found two years later, He was identified
and was the last victim to be positively identified.
From day to day as the explorations were continued the enormity of the
loss of life became even more apparent. Cheap caskets and
boxes were brought in but within a few days the bodies could not be
put into boxes. Then they were loaded into trucks, covered with canvas
and carried into town, trailing slime all the way. Each town had its
own outdoor morgue. Bodies were piled into ditches resembling stacks
of wood. Corps were brought in half a dozen at a time, each secured with
a turn of rope around its neck like a ghastly bunch of grapes. A crew
of workers then played them in rows while insurance representatives attempted
to identify their policy holders, While a the return of the trucks
the bodies were heaped into huge piles, nearly all stark naked,
like great ginger cookies, eyes and tongues protruding. The skin on their
hands was sluffed off and hanging from the wrist. After the first few
days the colored and white was indistinguishable. All had lost their
skin. After the first few week due to their condition the bodies were
not buried. Now, wherever found they were liberally soaked with crude
oil and cremated. Some single, some in heaps of a dozen or even more.
St. Lucie Tape Mh/14
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hyarcf5
One of the biggest problems to the workers were the morbid .hoWds of
curio- ity hounds. One way of getting rid of them was to make them
stand and gaze at the heap piles of bloody. They would stare for
moments in trance, then turn aside to vomit. This might have
discouraged some but there were always more who were stubborn. Due
to several reasons estimates of actual number of deaths had varied
widely. The estimate given by the U.S. Department of Commerce seems
to be the best which is between one thousand eight hundred and fifty
and two thousand. Many hurricanes have passed over Lake Ocheechobee
since the great disaster of 1928, and no doubt. many will do so again.
The few who lived through this tropical blow will always regard
hurricanes with due respect. But since the building of the Hoover
Dikelno longer do families flee for their lives when the reports are
heard and the hurricane flags are hoisted.
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