As Kentucky Derby Nears, Last Year’s Deaths Cast Long Shadow

The official Red Cross death toll was 408, but most agreed that the official count was low, that the final tally would never be known, owing to an uncertain Keys census and a general laxity in FERA’s record keeping. The Islamorada coroner put the figure at 423, but many informed estimates quickly suggested the total was over 600, for many bodies of

The storm of 1906 had concentrated its fury on the Upper Keys, where most of the work ongoing at the time had been centered. The hurricane of 1909 had blasted the Middle Keys, where work had similarly progressed by that time. In 1910, as if guided by an especially malevolent hand, the storm turned its greatest intensity upon the Lower Keys, where u

Desperate for any ready source of cash, the right-of-way was sold to the state shortly after the disaster for $640,000, a sorry return indeed on a project that had required nearly $30 million, seven years, and the labor—and in quite a few cases, the lives—of a…

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