Hemingway's Hurricane

The all-but-forgotten story of an infamoustragedy that became the political scandalof its era

When the strongest hurricane of the 20th centuryslammed into the Florida Keys on LaborDay Weekend, 1935, it was as if its 200-mile-an-hourwinds had conspired with politics, the Depression, andpetty bureaucracy to turn disaster into tragedy. Amongthe 423 dead were 259 World War I veterans who hadbeen sent by Roosevelt's New Deal to live in tentcities and build a highway across the keys.

Arriving from Key West in the aftermath to helprescue his fellow veterans, Ernest Hemingway wasoutraged to learn that they had been prevented fromescaping the storm-first by government stinginess,then by the National Guard. His public censure of thegovernment spurred an investigation that many calleda whitewash. Hemingway's Hurricane tells an all-butforgottentale of terror, heroism, incompetence, andcompassion in the face of the overwhelming powerof nature.