September 18, 1926: The Great Miami Hurricane

September 18, 1926, 100 years ago: What becomes known as the Great Miami Hurricane makes landfall. Hurricanes didn't start to be identified with girls' names until 1953, and with boys' names until 1979. This one was the 7th of the Atlantic hurricane season, so its name would have started with a G.

The extension of passenger rail service to Key West in 1912, and the development of commercial air-conditioning in the early 20th Century, made living in Florida palatable. In the 1920s, particularly from 1924 onward, the "Florida Land Boom" was underway, taking advantage of the "paper prosperity" of the "Roaring Twenties," leaving behind entirely new, planned developments incorporated into towns and cities. Of course, being that Florida was a Southern State, these places were racially segregated.

This helped to make Miami and surrounding South Florida a major tourist destination. It gave Miami a rare status, enjoyed by possibly no other city in the Eastern U.S., besides New Orleans: It was a "major city" without having a major league baseball team.

But a lack of knowledge about storm frequency, and poor building standards, made these buildings, including houses, as susceptible to hurricanes as many buildings in San Francisco were to earthquakes and fires prior to that city's 1906 disaster.

There was warning, as the hurricane had already devastated the Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos. When it made landfall on September 18, the waves were as high as 15 feet. Although South Florida would be hit by damaging hurricanes in the interim, these would remain the highest waves there until Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Miami and Miami Beach were flooded, knee-deep. The County Causeway, connecting the two since 1920 (and later renamed for General Douglas MacArthur), was submerged under 6 feet of water. Yachts and other large vessels were carried out to sea. Power lines were downed, cutting off communication with the rest of the country. Most wooden buildings were either blown down or lost their roofs. Concrete and steel buildings were warped at their bases.

The hurricane moved inland, and caused damage on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The number of deaths is uncertain, but is believed to be over 500. With inflation factored in, it remains the most damaging hurricane in American history.

And that's just in the short term. In the long term, Florida took a long time to recover, economically and culturally. The land speculators went bankrupt. Historians in Florida have suggested that the State fell into a depression 3 years sooner than the country as a whole did. Additional hurricanes in 1928 and 1935 didn't help.