Sunday, October 25, 2009

The most severe hurricanes in Key West history have hit in the month of October, despite a historical tendency for most "West Indies" hurricanes to strike the "Caribbees" between August and September.

Quite apart from the Wilma flood of 2005, the hurricanes of 1846, 1909 and 1910, which sank ships, blew buildings down in Key West and devastated the land, were all in October.

On the good advice of a former city commissioner, Bill Verge, we have explored "Key West: The Old and the New," a book published in 1912 and written by Jefferson B. Browne, a Key West native who, in addition to being a historian, was also a lawyer, postmaster, customs collector, receiver, senator, Florida supreme court justice and freemason.

Browne's accounts of the three great October hurricanes make for sobering reading as we celebrate Fantasy Fest in a season that, to date, has been hurricane free.

His account begins with a reference to the eerily accurate Rev. Benito Vines, a Jesuit priest who achieved local renown as director of the magnetic and meteorological observatory of Cuba's Belin College in Havana. Vines' forecasts were grounded in history; in his own words, "The ecclesiastical authorities from time immemorial wisely ordained that priests in Cuba should recite the prayer Ad Repellendat Tempestates in September and October, but not in August." (August was dangerous for Puerto Rico.)

Adds Browne:

"The ecclesiastical authorities knew from experience that the cyclones of September and October are much to be feared in the vicinity of Cuba, but that those of August were not of a nature to cause apprehension. The history of the three severe cyclones that struck Key West supports this theory. One occurred on October 11, 1846, one on October 11, 1909, and one on October 17, 1910."

Of the hurricane in 1846, Browne quotes an historian from a previous generation, Colonel Maloney, who called it "the most destructive of any that had ever visited these latitudes within the memory of man." On Oct. 10, after light squalls that had increased in the night, "the wind was blowing fiercely and the rain was almost constant. Sunday night it was blowing a very severe gale, but it was not until Monday morning that the hurricane reached its intensity. It blew all day from the northeast."

Trees were uprooted, fences tossed aside and houses decapitated. All of the families residing northwest of Eaton Street abandoned their homes and sought refuge on higher ground in the neighborhood of Southard and Simonton streets (thickly wooded in the 1840s).

The lighthouse was washed away with the loss of seven persons' lives. William Curry's house at the corner of Caroline and William streets was torn from its pillars and it floated out to sea, carrying away an elderly African-American servant whose body was never recovered.

One of the most visible losses was of what Browne called the "beautiful" Australian pines that "once beckoned a welcome to the coming guest and waved a farewell to the departing."

Now for the hurricane of Oct. 11, 1909, beginning early in the day. Writes Browne:

"The moderate wind suddenly increased to a gale and by 9 a.m. had reached hurricane force. The wind blew steadily at about 75 miles per hour, but in the gusts which are characteristic of West Indian cyclones it reached a velocity of over 100 miles.

"When the storm first broke over Key West it was traveling north, but before the center reached here it veered to the northeast, which accounts for the three directions of the wind. The rainfall was unprecedented, 8.12 inches in five hours. There were only two lives lost; Frank Gray, a young photographer, who was drowned while trying to save his boat, and Andrew Cooper, second mate on the schooner Medford, who was struck on the head by the falling of the coal hoist at the naval station."

The buildings wholly destroyed were numerous, including the cigar factories of the Ruy Lopez Company, the Martinez Company and the George W. Nichols Company, also St. Paul's Episcopal Church, the English Wesleyan church, Bethel A.M.E. Church and the city bell tower on Division Street. Continues Browne: "The coal conveyors at the naval station broke loose and plunged through the dock. The pile driver and plant of the Penn Bridge Company was ruined."

The hurricane the next year, known by its date, 1910, is also known as "the repeater," the gambling term for a number that comes up twice in succession --a likelihood, says Browne, of 1,296 to 1.

The 1910 repeater looped north of the western tip of Cuba, passed through Key West and entered the coast near Fort Myers. Presumed to be a Category 3 storm, it was probably one of the most destructive hurricanes ever to hit Florida, bringing much bad news for many ("One-armed man and baby drown in Thousand Islands," went a headline).

Along with many another prominent building, reports Browne of the 1910 blow, "La Brisa, the pleasure pavilion of the Key West Electric Company at the southeast end of Simonton street, was washed from its pillars and dashed to pieces."

The 1910 storm took 30 hours to pass. The tide and sea swell were damagingly high.

Six miles away, at Sand Key, the barometer dropped to 28.40, which Browne identified as the lowest ever recorded in the United States.

• • • • •

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

• • • • •

In time for yesterday's International Day of Climate Action, scientific researchers who have just returned from the poles are launching a tour of the U.S. East Coast to warn that sea-level rise of a meter or more is likely as a result of accelerated melting and "dynamic changes" in ice sheets they witnessed in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Their "Hip Boot Tour," sponsored by the global warming solutions group Clean Air-Cool Planet, kicked off last week in Philadelphia and continues with stops in Portland, Maine; Hampton, New Hampshire; Norfolk, Virginia; Wilmington, North Carolina, and Miami, St. Petersburg and Tampa in Florida.

"The Arctic science community has uncovered startling new evidence that we are losing the world's ice reservoirs much faster than predicted in the last report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change," said Arctic policy expert Brooks Yeager. "The melting is outstripping even the previous worst-case scenario. Basically, the estimates in the last five years of likely sea-level rise have gone from knee-high to chest-high."

• • • • •

If you just can't take the thought of Fantasy Fest, you can always get yourself to the Upper Keys for the Kiwanis' Adult Halloween Party on Friday, Oct. 30, from 6 to 11 p.m. at the Elk's Club in Tavernier.

Bobby Stoky's graveyard crew from Sundowners Restaurant will provide a Gory Buffet Feast. There is a seven-piece "interactive" band from North Miami called Xpresso that plays music from the 1970s through today's Top 40. There will also be a costume contest going on, first prize $250.

"If you don't want to dress up," say organizers, "come anyway. You won't regret it."

• • • • •

In collaboration with its nonprofit partners, the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys (whose CEO, Dianna Sutton, is also a Solares Hill columnist), has introduced a new service.

Aimed at connecting individuals to volunteer opportunities among the county's nonprofits, Keys Volunteers is a free, online "help wanted" posting of volunteer opportunities. You can find it on the www.cffk.org website.

In 2008, 61.8 million Americans volunteered, contributing 8 billion hours of service worth $162 billion. Volunteers who serve as board members, answering phones, comforting clients or helping with a fundraiser played vital roles in ensuring that services, arts and entertainment, health and education opportunities can continue in our community. "Volunteerism is taking center stage as more nonprofits rely on nonpaid staff in order to meet their goals," said Sutton.

Since its founding in 1996, the Community Foundation has granted more than $12 million to support the work of local nonprofits.

• • • • •

Abigail the reading dog, who responds to written commands on flash cards and who Dianna Sutton introduced to readers in last week's Philanthropy Corner column, was scheduled to appear on last Thursday's "Fox and Friends" TV show.

Abigail belongs to Sutton's brother-in-law.

• • • • •

Oranges were first cultivated in Florida 470 years ago.

• • • • •

"New Paper" by Donald R. Sargent of Key West:

Tweet tweet, a canary speaks,

Honorably mentioning a fallen tree.

New paper! New paper! yells the boy.

Mornings awakened, days brightened,

Nights of dreamless sleep remembered as peaceful,

Knowing a new paper awaits your undivided attention.

• • • • •

Browsing a magazine from Greenville, Miss., we came across an ad for the McCormick Book Inn, Independent Bookseller, that posed a question: Why does Greenville have so many writers?

The answer is provided by store owner Hugh McCormick: "It's the brown water." He sells it for $3.95 in bottles labeled "Greenville's finest, guaranteed to make you wanna write -- from our tap to your typewriter."

The writers listed as local in the ad include Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, William A. Percy, Carolyn Stern, Hodding Carter, Ben Wasson, Louise Crump, Jim Dees, David W. Beckwith....

Wait a minute, that's our David, who with his wife Nancy reviews books for Solares Hill. He has already published one book written on that brown water ("A New Day in the Delta") and appears to be doing just fine on the waters of Vero Beach and the Keys where the couple also reside and write.

• • • • •

Last week in Soundings we printed a photo of a couple emerging through a doorway and asked our readers who they thought these people were.

We had reason to believe we knew who they were after uncovering the photo in our research. The topic was Fidel Castro's return to Havana via the Key West ferry following his 1948 honeymoon in New York City with bride Mirta Diaz-Balart,and the photo accompanying our findings came with good credentials. (Castro made multiple visits to Key West in the 1950s to pick up personal medical supplies at a pharmacy here.)

But the photo was mislabeled and we fell for it. The people shown in last week's Soundings are Gerald R. Ford and Betty Ford, as a number of our readers have informed us. The 1948 photo shows them leaving Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. after their October wedding.

Castro and his bride in 1948 actually looked like they do in the photo shown here, taken that year.

• • • • •

Quote for the Week:

"In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all depends on perseverance."

-- Johann Wolfgang

von Goethe

(1749-1832)