1928 Okeechobee Hurricane

The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane — also known as Hurricane San Felipe Segundo — stands as one of the deadliest natural disasters in United States history and the defining catastrophe of West Palm Beach's early twentieth century. The storm formed off the west coast of Africa near Dakar, Senegal on September 6, churned westward across the Atlantic, and struck Puerto Rico on September 13 before crossing the Bahamas and making landfall on the southeastern coast of Florida on the evening of September 16 as a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 130 to 155 miles per hour. The eye passed over West Palm Beach in the early hours of September 17, with winds of 145 mph (233 km/h); in the city, more than 1,711 homes were destroyed. Though the coastline suffered enormously, the catastrophe reached its fullest horror further inland, where the failure of earthen levees around Lake Okeechobee consumed entire communities in floodwaters. The death toll has been listed as "at least 2,500," establishing it as the second deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The storm's legacy is felt in West Palm Beach to this day, in the form of mass burial sites, memorial parks, and enduring debates about racial justice in disaster response.

Background and Path

Only two years after the Great Miami Hurricane, the hurricane that would become the second Category 4 storm to strike South Florida in two years formed off the west coast of Africa near Dakar, Senegal on September 6, 1928, as a tropical depression. It churned across the Atlantic, devastated the island of Guadeloupe on September 12, moved through the Virgin Islands, and struck Puerto Rico on September 13 — El Día de San Felipe — giving the storm its Spanish name. The storm killed more than 300 people in Puerto Rico alone. Even before it reached the Florida coast, the hurricane had already killed between 300 and 1,000 people and injured thousands more across the Caribbean.

In September 1928, only about 50,000 people lived in South Florida. The land and real estate boom was already beginning to fade, although many subdivisions and new communities were still being built. The town of Palm Beach, developed as a resort destination by Henry Flagler and incorporated in 1911, had become a playground for the wealthy, while West Palm Beach grew up on the opposite side of Lake Worth as a working community where the support staff lived.

On Sunday evening around 6:15 PM on September 16, the hurricane made landfall in the United States in Palm Beach County between Jupiter and Boca Raton. Richard Gray, Meteorologist in Charge in Miami, had initially believed the storm would recurve and not strike South Florida, but warnings were ultimately issued from Miami to Titusville. Disruption of communications made tracking the center of the storm extremely difficult, and it came as a surprise on the evening of September 16 when the eye moved directly over West Palm Beach. The storm then continued its northwest track inland, carrying its devastating winds and surge directly toward the low-lying agricultural communities surrounding Lake Okeechobee.

Impact on West Palm Beach and the Coast

Damage in coastal Palm Beach County was severe, especially in the Jupiter area where the eyewall of the hurricane persisted longer than at any other location because of where the storm crossed the coast. A storm surge of around 10 feet, with waves likely as high as 20 feet, crashed into the barrier islands including Palm Beach.

The strongest winds in the eyewall affected northern Palm Beach County, particularly the vicinity of Jupiter, as the eye made landfall farther south. At the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, the mortar was reportedly "squeezed ... like toothpaste" from between the bricks during the storm, swaying the tower 17 inches off the base. The lighthouse keeper, Captain Seabrook, and his son, Franklin, worked to keep the light burning after the electricity went out. When the generator failed, they hand-cranked the light's mantle to keep it operational through the storm. Six fatalities occurred west of Jupiter after a school where people had sought shelter collapsed under the force of the wind.

Because of well-issued hurricane warnings, residents had prepared for the storm, and only 26 deaths were recorded in the coastal Palm Beach area. Still, the scale of physical destruction to the city of West Palm Beach was staggering. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Hollywood suffered only minor damage to homes and businesses, but the area surrounding West Palm Beach witnessed the destruction of more than 1,711 homes and several million dollars in property damage. Eighteen inches of rain fell in 24 hours across the region on September 16 and into September 17.

The Lake Okeechobee Flood

While West Palm Beach suffered severe wind and water damage along the coast, the catastrophic loss of life unfolded to the west. As the hurricane traveled over the lake, its winds shifted from northerly to southerly, sloshing the waters of the shallow lake first against the southern dikes, then across to the northern ones. The meager dried-mud dikes failed on both sides, causing flash floods that caught people huddled in their homes with no means of escape.

As the Category 4 hurricane moved inland, the strong winds piled the water up at the south end of the lake, ultimately topping the levee and rushing out onto the fertile agricultural land beyond. The lake's water level was already three feet higher than normal on September 16 due to heavy rains in the preceding weeks. Residents had been notified of the approaching storm that day and many evacuated, but when the storm appeared to be arriving later than expected, a number of people returned to their homes believing it had missed the area. That decision proved fatal for thousands.

Thousands of people, the majority of them Black and non-white migrant farm workers, drowned as water several feet deep spread over an area approximately 6 miles wide and 75 miles long around the south end of the lake. The flood consumed the towns of Pahokee, Canal Point, Chosen, Belle Glade, and South Bay. Estimates indicate that three-quarters or more of those who died in the flood were non-white field workers who had little warning and fewer resources with which to flee. The floodwaters lasted for several weeks, and survivors were still being found wandering the flooded landscape as late as September 22. Because Lake Okeechobee sat in an isolated interior region, it would be three days before government aid arrived. Due to the difficult terrain, the vast area involved, and the slowly receding floodwaters, the search for bodies was not ended until six weeks after the storm.

Total damages from the hurricane were estimated at around $25 million, which, normalized for population, wealth, and inflation, would be approximately $16 billion in present-day terms.

Racial Inequity in the Aftermath

The response to the hurricane's dead exposed the deep racial fault lines that ran through West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County in 1928. While the Okeechobee Hurricane killed people of all backgrounds across Palm Beach County, the vast majority of the deaths fell upon Black Bahamian and African American communities. Between 1,800 and 4,000 men, women, and children died in the flood, and estimates hold that roughly 75 percent of them were Black, making this one of the deadliest natural disasters to impact African Americans and Afro-Bahamians in United States history.

Reflecting the racial and class discrimination of the era, authorities reserved the few available caskets for the bodies of white victims. White victims received a formal burial service, though in a mass grave, at Woodlawn Cemetery in downtown West Palm Beach — the only mass gravesite to receive a timely memorial. In West Palm Beach, 69 white victims were interred in a mass grave at Woodlawn Cemetery, while approximately 674 Black victims were buried in a mass grave in the city's pauper's burial field at Tamarind Avenue and 25th Street. The corpses of Black victims were stacked in piles, doused in fuel oil, and burned before authorities bulldozed the remains into the unmarked mass grave. That site was later sold for private industrial use, serving successively as a garbage dump, a slaughterhouse, and a sewage treatment plant — a sequence that many historians and advocates have characterized as a deliberate erasure of the Black dead.

Memorial services — one white, one non-white — were held simultaneously but at separate locations on Sunday, September 30, 1928, in West Palm Beach. A contemporary Miami Herald account reported nearly 1,000 victims of the hurricane disaster, 674 of whom were identified as non-white. Two thousand people attended the ceremonies at the pauper's cemetery, where noted Black educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune read the Mayor's proclamation.

Memorialization and Long-Term Legacy

The recovery and reconstruction of West Palm Beach began almost immediately after the storm. In October 1928 alone, permits for repair work projects exceeding $2 million were approved for Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, with the latter issuing 3,165 permits for building and major repairs between October 1 and June 30, 1929.

Inland communities fared far worse. Some towns along the shores of Lake Okeechobee slowly rebuilt — Belle Glade, for instance, saw its population grow during the Great Depression as workers sought employment in the agricultural and natural resources industries. Other localities, however, such as Chosen, Fruitcrest, and Okeelanta, never recovered from the storm and effectively ceased to exist as functioning communities.

The storm also prompted major and lasting changes in flood control infrastructure across South Florida. Between 1932 and 1938, the earthen structure that would eventually be dedicated as the Herbert Hoover Dike was constructed around Lake Okeechobee to prevent another catastrophic flood. The tragedy similarly led to the formation of the Okeechobee Flood Control District to oversee flood control measures across the region. These infrastructure changes fundamentally altered the hydrology of South Florida for generations to come.

The long-delayed recognition of the Black victims buried in West Palm Beach became a cause taken up by later generations of advocates. Robert Hazard, a West Palm Beach resident, established the Storm of '28 Memorial Park Coalition Inc. to fight for formal recognition of the Black victims of the storm. In 2000, the West Palm Beach burial site was reacquired by the city, and plans for the construction of a memorial began in earnest. The site was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and a state historical marker was added in 2003 during events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the storm. Eight years after the city reacquired the land, on the 80th anniversary of the storm in 2008, officials erected a plaque and historical marker at the Tamarind Avenue site. At Woodlawn Cemetery, a stone marker stands today in memory of the 69 white victims buried there in the days following the storm.

The Historical Society of Palm Beach County maintains a permanent outdoor exhibit titled The Storm of '28 at the entrance of the 1916 Historic Courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach, ensuring the hurricane remains part of the civic memory of the region.

References

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