Okeechobee hurricane of 1928 was one of the most powerful and deadly hurricanes in United States history. The hurricane, after causing extensive destruction to several islands in the Caribbean Sea , made landfall in south Florida , in the southeastern United States, on Sept. 16, 1928. It killed more than 1,000 people in the Caribbean and at least 2,500 people in the United States. Some of the largest loss of life occurred as a result of the severe flooding the storm caused near Florida’s Lake Okeechobee .
The Okeechobee hurricane formed as a tropical depression over the Atlantic Ocean, near the coast of western Africa, in early September 1928. A tropical depression occurs when winds surrounding a low-pressure area begin to blow in a circular pattern. The storm strengthened as it crossed westward over the Atlantic. The hurricane, with wind speeds greater than 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour, caused widespread destruction to several islands in the Caribbean, particularly Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Saint Kitts, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. According to some estimates, 1,500 people in the region were killed. On September 16, the hurricane made landfall in Palm Beach County, Florida. In the city of West Palm Beach, more than 1,700 buildings were destroyed. Thousands more structures were damaged.
The storm soon struck Lake Okeechobee, which lay about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Florida’s eastern shore. The lake is the largest in the Southern United States. The hurricane’s heavy rains filled the lake to capacity. On the lake’s southern shore, powerful winds swept lake waters over earthen flood barriers, which soon crumbled. Fast-moving floodwaters then devastated the area, washing away homes and drowning thousands. Many of the storm’s victims were migrant farmworkers and their families from the Caribbean Islands and parts of the Southern United States. Most of these victims were buried in mass graves in Martin County east of the lake or in West Palm Beach. In 2008, the city of West Palm Beach dedicated a memorial park to the hurricane victims buried in a large, previously unmarked mass grave.
In the years after the Okeechobee hurricane, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Herbert Hoover Dike—a larger, stronger flood barrier around the lake. Originally, officials set the storm’s death toll at 1,836. In 2003, however, after further study of local statistics, the National Hurricane Center revised the number of deaths to “at least 2,500” people in Florida.
