On September 2-3, 1935, the first recorded category 5 hurricane swept through southern Florida. Storms were yet to be given names, so it became known as the Labor Day hurricane. Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West at the time, and the damage on that island was relatively minor, although it was cut off from the mainland when the hurricane wrecked the railroad bridge. Nearby Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key were flattened, with all buildings and most vegetation stripped away. Hemingway wrote about the destruction, particularly the 400 people who died in the keys.
Many of the dead were World War I veterans, employed by the federal government to work on highway construction. Hemingway was incensed that despite several days warning, these men were not evacuated to the mainland, but were left in their ramshackle dormitories. Their bodies were not taken away for days. The scene reminded Hemingway of the mass deaths he had seen on the battlefields of the Great War. Read how Ernest Hemingway reported the carnage and his anger at the Conversation.
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