Hurricane

No city's growth had been more outlandish than Miami--over 250,000 population increase since 1920. No other city had been blessed by the gods like Miami, where millionaires dawdled in blue plashing wavelets beneath azure heavens; where the nation's "400" golfed with royalty until tired, then attended the races for relaxation; where even a mere key lying three miles off the mainland was bought up by men like Carl Fisher (Prestolite) and Harvey Firestone (Akron tireman), transformed into a palmettoed Eden connected with Miami proper by a $1,000,000 causeway over Biscayne Bay. People of the "Magic City" boasted that its indolent sun-kissed shores had never been touched by a hurricane; that Miami was, in fact, well outside the "hurricane belt."

Last week, as everyone knows, the rain and wind gods conspired with Neptune, wiped the "Magic City" from the map.

A day before, seasoned "salts" had noted two curious phenomena. In a flat calm, monster oily waves swept up to the beach, boomed hollowly like bushmen's drums. This was the "dead" swell caused by heavy weather no great distance away. The other occurrence, more inexplicable, was the leaping of porpoises,* long considered by seamen a storm augury. Seasoned "salts" had sought shelter.

The next day the storm-signals were hoisted and speedily changed to hurricane warnings. The barometer was around 29.25, falling fast. The sky was yellowish. Pelicans stood motionless on keys in ridiculous single file, ogled each other. It grew black.

At midnight rain came softly pattering like children's footsteps. The barometer was 28.84. At 1 a.m. the wind blew 65 miles an hour. The barometer was 28.00. At 5:40 a.m. a screaming, slashing demoniacal 130-mile gale raged wilfully, lustily, triumphantly. The barometer was 27.75 (lowest ever recorded in the U. S.). Pelicans, gulls, petrels, royal terns swept in helplessly, crazily, were dashed against walls into broken lumps. The waters of the ocean on one side and of the Bay of Biscayne on the other swept over Bayshore Drive, met. People drowned like trapped puppies to the frivolous dirge of tinkling glass.

There had come a lull. Creatures crept from wreckage. They pawed dazedly over tangled debris, stumbled on dead monster fishes, sought kin-bodies. Down in the harbor the waves scarcely abated-- wrenched, tore, harried, sank ships. Over in rich idle Hollywood, one lone building, the Masonic Temple, stood drunkenly. As if enraged by such impertinence, the hurricane struck again.

So, already broken, twisted, blasted, Miami was rewrecked. The waters of rivers were forced back to an unprecedentedly low level, then urged headlong overwhelmingly forward to founder grounded vessels. Fort Lauderdale, Pompano,* Hialea, Dania, Homestead, Coral Gables, Hallandale, Floranada, Ojus--all were devastated.

Then, suddenly, nine hours had passed like a distorted dream, and the wind-god raged moaning up the northeast coast toward Pensacola. No more would sport coats and plumed hats" stroll at Hialea Race track. It was gone. No more would dandies strut and women preen in Carl Fisher's fashionable Flamingo Hotel. It was wrecked. Five hundred bodies soaked in the streets, some wretchedly askew under logs, others stretched out peacefully by the Chamber of Commerce. Where had been one mammoth mansion sat a lone bathtub. And ghouls peered about, tampered with corpses.

The U. S. was amazed, flabbergasted. It could not comprehend. Money loss was reported to be ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred millions of dollars. Thirty-eight thousand souls were homeless. There was no food; what there had been was water-soaked. People lacked water, light, clothing. Great trees, torn up like matchsticks, lay across the roads. Here sagged houses without roofs, there tilted roofs without houses. Ships nestled in once busy streets while homes floated crazily atop a panting ocean. Miami was a damned, insane region from the Ancient Mariner, and the gods were as mad as Coleridge.

Martial law was declared. Food and water were secured. The Red Cross took charge.

All mariners that frequent the Gulf of Mexico region dread these annual hurricanes. Their source is usually in the Caribbean, where an initial whirling motion is caused by the expansion of moist air over tropical waters. They then generally pursue a northern course gradually increasing in intensity so long as they remain over water. Curiously, due to lower barometric pressure on the southernmost side, the southern semicircle of these hurricanes is comparatively harmless. Mariners refer to the northern half as "the dangerous semi-circle," and the southern half as the "navigable semi-circle." They can usually rely upon "riding out" the "navigable semicircle" at anchor. Due to the rotating movement of the earth, all these hurricanes revolve (counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere) in a manner similar to U. S. western tornadoes, save that, of course, they are vastly more destructive. The centre is sometimes almost motionless, whereas the outside rim attains the greatest speed in exactly the same manner that the outside rim of any circular object--a wheel, for example--travels faster than any point nearer the centre. Hence seamen invariably reach a calm spot when fighting their way through these hurricanes.

Obviously, Miami was in the "dangerous semi-circle." Key West received the "navigable semi-circle," therefore was damaged inconsiderably. After striking Miami from the northeast, the hurricane made a sort of quarter-turn on its heel, proceeded northwesterly over the Gulf after passing out to sea near Tampa.

* All Gulf of Mexico fishermen agree that schools of porpoises leaping usually indicate approaching heavy weather. Whether this is due to atmospheric conditions or to marine conditions, who can say? * Doubtless named after the famed fish pompano, southern epicures' delight and conceded one of the world's tastiest marine morsels.