Wind, Water & Woe

If a Southern Pacific train from the West had not been six hours late rolling into New Orleans late last fortnight, 356 men, women & children aboard a coastwise steamer would not have spent 48 hours face to face with Death in one of the most furious hurricanes that ever struck the Florida Keys. And if a Florida East Coast train had been dispatched an hour earlier, 410 other men, women & children might still be alive.

On French Reef. Scheduled to sail from New Orleans to New York at 11 a.m., the 8,000-ton Southern Pacific-Morgan Liner Dixie waited until 6 p. m. for 25 vacationists whose train had been held up by a Texas washout. More than a quarter of a day behind schedule, the Dixie dropped down through the Mississippi Delta, swung out into the Gulf of Mexico. Aboard her was a crew of 123 and 233 passengers, including three popularity contest winners from Pennsylvania, a prominent Manhattan psychiatrist, some honeymooners and an assortment of trippers and travelers taking advantage of the cheap rail-water route from the West Coast to New York. It occurred to few that they had chosen one of the most hazardous months of the year to cross one of the world's most treacherous patches of sea. The Caribbean hurricane season was on, and Gulf fishermen had ominously reported that tarpon had been migrating to shore waters "in droves and herds, flocks and schools, by thousands --like they always do in a heavy hurricane season."

Two mornings later the Dixie's company watched a low bank of black clouds creep over the southeastern horizon. By noon a stiff blow was on. By 4 o'clock the Dixie was pitching, rolling and trembling from stem to stern in the grip of a full-sized tempest which had caught her in the perilous Florida Straits. Night came down and the storm increased, sending waves clean over her bridge, blinding her officers with solid sheets of rain. At 8:12 p. m. the Dixie's bottom grated over something that felt like a giant washboard, stuck fast on a hidden reef.

The Dixie, as coastal steamers go, is a first class ship. She is only eight years old, the flagship of her line, equipped with all modern navigation gadgets. Her commander, towheaded Captain Einar William Sundstrom, had a fine reputation for seamanship. Of his 50 years, 34 had been spent at sea. No stranger to marine disaster, he had been rammed off Galveston Bay, brought a vessel safely through a 120-m.p.h. hurricane. Of a philosophical turn of mind, Captain Sundstrom had observed upon taking command of the Dixie last year: "You've always got to be on guard against the oceans. They may look peaceful and act peaceful for a long time. That's your good luck. But you know the time is coming when the sea is going to rise and hand you all it's got in the way of trouble--and that's plenty." Aground in a tropical hurricane at night last week, Captain Sundstrom was handed a maximum of trouble by the sea.

Radioman James W. Hodges, who learned his trade in a Kansas City drug store, was ordered to send out his first SOS signal just four minutes after the Dixie grounded. It was weak because the antenna had blown away, but, as it was repeated, the Navy heard it from Norfolk to Balboa. Tropical Radio heard it from Miami, Radiomarine heard it at West Palm Beach. Out in the raging night other ships heard it, wallowed about on their course. The Texaco tanker Reaper made for the stricken ship. So did United Fruiters Limon and Platano. So did City Service's Watertown. So did the Dixie's southbound sister Morgan ship El Occidente. From the shore the Coast Guard cutters Saukee and Carrabasset, with breeches buoy and Lyle guns, steamed for the Dixie. Help was at hand, if Captain Sundstrom could keep his ship from going to pieces before it got to him.

By 8:45 p.m. Captain Sundstrom and his deck force, which distinguished itself for cool efficiency, had all passengers in life belts at boat stations along the lee rail. Boats were swung out to deck level and stewards passed up & down handing out fruit, sandwiches, coffee. And then the wait began. For a full hour passengers stood around for the order to go overside into the howling night. But the order did not come. Captain Sundstrom knew that to put out boats was certain death. The passengers began singing The Man on the Flying Trapeze. As soon as it appeared that the Dixie's plates were tougher than the pounding they got from the coral reef, everyone was shooed back into the public rooms. There they stayed for the next 46 hours, keeping up their spirits with various occupations, while Captain Sundstrom kept the pumps going in his leaking hull and prayed for the wind to give out before his ship did.

A Brooklynite helped organize the Dixie Club, whose object was "to cheer the other passengers by singing and drinking." Mrs. Beatrice L. Carter of Cambridge, Mass, brooded on the "premonition" which had kept her off the Mohawk and Morro Castle, warned her against the Dixie. A North Bergen, N. J. man passed the time writing his experiences for the New York Times. Sewage and sea water had by this time risen knee-deep in the staterooms. When it had spread its stench and filth into the public rooms, a band of women got down on their knees, tried to scrub the floors. Passenger hero turned out to be Henry Treger. National Broadcasting Co. engineer, who climbed the stack to help re-rig the radio antenna. "I never expected to get down safely," he recalled. ''The wind fairly burned me."

First obstacle to the rescue was that Captain Sundstrom had given his position as Carysfort Reef, when he was eight miles south on French Reef, just off that part of the coast where the Florida Keys meet the body of the State. Second obstacle was the wind which was still blowing with gale force, kicking up a mighty sea. Hove to, the other ships watched another terrible night close down on the stranded Dixie. It was not until early next afternoon that they finally put out boats to take off the bedraggled passengers, land most of them at Miami where they were shipped on to Manhattan on a special train. Climbing aboard the Dixie to pump Captain Sundstrom's hand for weathering a Grade A maritime disaster without losing a single life, Morgan Line officials and the Press found the able commander haggard but still alert. "When was the last time you had any sleep. Captain?'' somebody asked. "That's a matter of history," sighed Captain Sundstrom.

On the Keys. At sea the hurricane did some $500,000 damage to the Dixie but killed nobody. Ashore it ran up a woeful bill of death & destruction.

In 1909 Promoter Henry M. Flagler was pushing his Florida East Coast Railway out 126 miles from the mainland to Key West over a long series of trestles, bridges and fills resting on the curved spine of the Keys. A hurricane came up and almost blew the railroad away, killing some 300 of the construction crew and scattering fragments of the houseboats in which they lived as far off as South America.

In 1933 another Bonus Army marched on Washington. Instead of routing it with tear gas, resourceful President Roosevelt deployed the disconsolate down-at-heel veterans into special work camps in South Carolina and Florida (TIME, Aug. 26). The tougher spirits were set to building a highway along the Keys to Key West, paralleling Promoter Flagler's old railroad. If the U. S. had a Devil's Island, the Florida Keys would be a good place to locate it. A collection of mangrove swamps and low islands of coral sand, they were hot, humid, alive with mosquitoes, and while rattlesnakes coil in the underbrush, sharks, barracuda and poisonous rays infest the milky waters. The veterans started kicking as soon as they got there, cursed the poor food, flimsy houses, inadequate medical care, the militia which was sent to quell their rioting. Three veterans' work camps were located on Windlys Island, Upper Matecumbe and Lower Matecumbe Keys. And that was the precise centre of last week's big blow. When the Weather Bureau's two red flags with black squares went up along the Florida coast, relief officials took one look at the hurricane warning, dispatched a special train south from Miami to pick up the highway construction gangs. But the wind caught the train before it reached its destination, sprawled its eleven cars all over the right-of-way.

At Camp Three, where 243 veterans were enrolled, the men ran for the mess hall. When the roof blew off they scattered over the railway embankment. The water began rising and the men began praying. Suddenly a terrific blast ripped up the tracks as a tidal wave struck. The ex-soldiers were swept into the mangrove swamp where many were battered to death, or out to sea where they drowned. Seventy saved their lives by hanging on to a tank car full of water--"Good old No. 3390."

Most of the camp buildings were instantly slapped flat. At the Snake Creek Camp on Windlys Island was a permanent hotel, used as a hospital. In it were 40 patients, half of them women & children. Seven men and three or four of the women & children were dragged out alive after it collapsed. When the hospital went, Dr. Lasser Alexander crawled up the railway embankment with some other men. "Placing ourselves behind the grade," said that medical officer, "we dug holes in the earth under the cross ties so we could protect our heads from the flying debris. This was the only way we could find to keep our brains from being crushed out."

Fleeing from Camp Five on Lower Matecumbe Key, Timekeeper Joseph Factsau, onetime Army aviator, drove his wife, two daughters and two grandchildren, to Camp One. They took shelter in a building full of terrified, noisy drunks. It lasted only an hour. Then he and some others tried to make a human chain to get the women & children to the railway embankment. A wave washed him away. He swam back and heard his wife scream.

She and his daughters and grandchildren were all killed before his eyes.

When the Red Cross, the American Legion, the National Guard and the Coast Guard finally got into the devastated Keys over the broken bridges and wrecked roads, they found signs of slaughter worse than war. Bodies were in trees, floating in the creeks, bogged in the mud. While jittery veterans dug in the sand for hot bottles of beer, relief forces began to collect and count the corpses. The first thing President Roosevelt did after ordering out necessary aid was to promise burials with full military honors for the dead veterans. But the Florida Keys last week was no place for such ceremonies. To prevent plague the bodies were bundled onto drays, wrapped in oiled rags, boxed, burned.

Nothing but praise for all concerned came from the Dixie disaster. Ashore things were different. With smoke from the funeral pyres drifting lazily along the flat horizon of his State, stocky Governor Dave Sholtz of Florida quoted an estimate of the fatalities as 1,000, demanded to know why the veterans were not moved out before the hurricane hit, sourly declared that there was "great carelessness somewhere."

In Washington a hot interdepartmental dogfight started when Acting Chief Charles C. Clark of the U. S. Weather Bureau announced that his service had given ample warning for the evacuation of veterans on the Keys and Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins reported: "From the Weather Bureau reports this storm was hopping all around there and nobody could have known where it was going to hit." Admiral Gary Grayson of the Red Cross did not ease matters when he smugly observed that the weather reports had been good enough for his agency, which began relief mobilization even before the hurricane struck. From Hyde Park President Roosevelt turned the whole altercation over to the Veterans' Administration for investigation. On the practical side, he had just approved a $5,000,000 PWA allotment as a start toward building a canal across Florida from Port Inglis to Jacksonville which would eliminate the hazard of the Florida Straits to shipping.

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