Disaster at Moore Haven: How the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane destroyed a Small Town on the Shores of Lake Okeechobee

On September 18, 1926, a powerful hurricane made landfall in South Florida. It struck the booming new city of Miami, then moved inland to devastate the small agricultural town of Moore Haven, on the shores of Lake Okeechobee. When the poorly-designed earthen dike intended to protect Moore Haven fail...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of multidisciplinary research (Miami Gardens, Fla.) Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 145 - 152
Main Authors Wickham, Kyria, Ibanez, Camila Rimoldi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Miami St. Thomas University 22.09.2020
Subjects
Agriculture
American history
Canals
Cemeteries
Disaster victims
Drownings
Floods
Forensic sciences
Funeral homes
Historic preservation
History
Hurricanes
Identification
Mass graves
Statistics
Storm damage
United States
South Florida
Lake Okeechobee
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Summary:On September 18, 1926, a powerful hurricane made landfall in South Florida. It struck the booming new city of Miami, then moved inland to devastate the small agricultural town of Moore Haven, on the shores of Lake Okeechobee. When the poorly-designed earthen dike intended to protect Moore Haven failed, wave surges 15 feet high flooded the town, demolishing houses, farms and other structures, and drowning many townspeople. The high force winds crushed and obliterated the shacks of agricultural workers, which were constructed of scrap materials. The smaller canals scattered over the area carried the drowning victims to Lake Okeechobee's main canals. Relief teams from nearby Sebring were the first to arrive in Moore Haven, but post-hurricane conditions hampered their progress and made recovery and identification of victims difficult. At least 26, and perhaps as many as 50, unidentified victims of the hurricane are buried in a mass grave in Sebring's Pinecrest Cemetery, almost unmarked and difficult to find.
ISSN:1947-2900
1947-2919