Filed by The Storm Council Archivist
The record of The Labor Day 1935 Hurricane survives in surprising detail: telephone logs, weather advisories, and testimony, all preserved because federal investigators reconstructed the day almost hour by hour.
Ray Sheldon, who oversaw the camps in the Keys, watched conditions worsen through the morning of September 2 and pressed to evacuate.
The authority to act belonged to Fred Ghent, in Jacksonville, more than 300 miles away.
Sheldon finally reached him at approximately 1:45 that afternoon. Ghent requested a special train from the Florida East Coast Railway roughly fifteen minutes later.
Every step is documented.
Every step required the one before it to finish first — a warning, a phone call, a decision, a request — before the railroad could even begin assembling a train still sitting in a Miami yard.
The chain of command was followed, but the process took time the men in the Upper Keys no longer had.
The Storm Council is always watching.
You can follow along for free, gain access to the complete Storm Council library, or become a Storm Council Member and go deeper into the histories, findings, and lessons behind each storm.
Join us at StormCouncil.com