By Michelle Quigley
Two documentaries produced by The Education Network (T.E.N.) of the Palm Beach County School District have been awarded Tellys.
The documentary Laura Woodward: Visionary Artist won in the documentary, cultural and education categories. The 30-minute production tells the story of Laura Woodward, a landscape artist who used her paintings to persuade Henry Flagler to build a resort in Palm Beach in 1894.
The Hurricane of 1928 — documenting the deadly storm that slammed into Palm Beach County and roared inland to lift the water right out of Lake Okeechobee — also won in the education category.
You can watch Laura Woodward: Visionary Artist and The Hurricane of 1928 right here on HistoricPalmBeach.com.
In 2009 T.E.N. won an Emmy award for its Anywhere/Anytime science videos.
The Telly Awards are in their 31st year of honoring the best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, video and film productions, and works created for the Web.
Drawing of Laura Woodward, painting under an umbrella amid a tropical landscape. (Palm Beach Post file photo)
Tags: art, Glades, hurricanes, Palm Beach, videos
If the quiet (so far) 2009 hurricane season is making you nostalgic for scenes of flooding and wind damage, check out these Palm Beach Post photo galleries of storms from the past two decades. Don’t get too comfortable about this season though. Two of the dozen featured storms hit us in October.
Hurricane experts say El Niño is one of the factors contributing to the current mild season. Read more about the science behind the quiet season on the Eye on the Storm blog.
Find more hurricane history here:
Florida’s worst storms
Costliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland since 1900
The most intense storms since 1851
Deadliest storms to strike the U.S. mainland since 1851
Tags: hurricanes
Readers: Last week we detailed Lake Worth resident Clara Waugh’s letter to her sister and memoir of the great Sept. 16, 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Here’s the rest:
“Dawn came at last and it showed us a mighty gloomy city, made gloomier by the drizzle that was falling. Fallen trees and pieces of structures blocked the streets everywhere.
“There naturally was a lack of organization in the local relief work, and it took most of the week for the actual tragedy of the Everglades to impress its horror upon us. Every truck brought injured and half-drowned people.
“Soon the work of making rough boxes started and a steam shovel dug trenches in the cemeteries at West Palm Beach and the last count showed that seven hundred boxes had been lowered. Scarcely any bodies showed marks — they were drowned.
“Mrs. Dale, a former “B” Street neighbor, has been living in Bay City, a community near the lake since last fall. They got up on the roof and by holding onto a wire they managed to be saved.
“Mrs. Dale called on me last week and she said that the waves dashed over their heads many times during the worst of the storm.
“They were the only ones saved in that community except the folks who heeded the storm warning and came to Lake Worth or West Palm Beach on Saturday.
“Most of the people who perished were colored laborers who had come to the lake region for the fall planting and to work for the sugar companies.
“Reconstruction is evident on every hand. The sun is shining, our electricity is on and our pump is pumping. The debris has been cleared away and everybody seems busy.
“P.S.: Sister, do you recall Shakespeare’s Tempest, and the note telling that it was written after the author heard our account of a hurricane in the Bahamas. I’m wondering if the immortal William would not have added a tragedy instead of a comedy to his writing had he lived to learn of the Glades disaster.”
Photo: Special to Neighborhood Post
Clematis Street after the 1928 hurricane. A Western Union telegraph office can be seen to the right and the tall building on the left at the other end of the street is Anthony’s clothing store.
Tags: hurricanes
“It woke up old Okeechobee, and the monster began to roll in his bed,” wrote Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
The storm of 1928 came ashore in central Palm Beach County with winds of at least 145 mph. Then it did what most people don’t think about when it comes to hurricanes: It brought death inland. As the storm crossed Lake Okeechobee, the 20-foot-high storm surge crashed through the low muck along the south and east shores. When it finally turned northeast and away, 1,800 to 3,000 people had been killed. Some were never found.
This undated file photo taken in the aftermath of the 1928 hurricane shows the damage done to a cluster of Everglades scientific work stations in Belle Glade.
On the anniversary of the 1928 storm Eliot Kleinberg has featured memories by survivors in his Post Time column:
‘Everything Pointed Toward a Bad Wind’ recalls weathering the storm in downtown West Palm Beach.
1928 Hurricane Inspiration For Songs looks into the history of the song “Somebody Got Drowned.”
Memoir Recalls 1928 Hurricane and 1928 Storm Nearly Killed Family recount stories from a boy who lived at the north end of Lake Okeechobee.
We invite you to share your own stories and memories in the comments below.
Read more about the 1928 hurricane at palmbeachpost.com and see The Hurricane of 1928 documentary produced by The Education Network on historicpalmbeach.com.
Tags: hurricanes
Readers: This week marks the 81st anniversary of the Sept. 16, 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, the greatest to strike our region and America’s second-deadliest natural disaster ever.
Every year around this time, we feature memoirs submitted by survivors or their descendants.
Kay and Robbie Siemon of West Palm Beach sent this, a letter from Robbie’s grandmother, Clara Waugh. Clara’s husband, Jim, worked at the Halsey and Griffith office supply store from 1925 until he bought it in 1952. The family still owns it.
Excerpts:
“Lake Worth Florida, Sunday, Oct. 21st, 1928:
“The wind was disagreeable Sunday morning and we decided against going to Sunday school. Everything pointed toward a bad wind. After dinner it was evident that we could not escape the real hurricane wind, but we still hoped that it might not be as bad as it was reported.
“It was only a short time until the light and telephone wires were torn down and the wind was blowing with more power at each breath.
“The wind had a most hideous power of suction. The wind seemed to reach a point beyond which it could not go, and the house fairly swayed when an indescribable calm fell.
“Jim and I both realized at once that the first half of the storm was over and the calm was the center.
“We both went out of doors and boarded our windows some more. Knowing that hurricanes travel in circles we prepared for a south blow.
“The folks from across the way came over and asked to stay with us. Mrs. Gentry wanted to stay in her home in spite of the roof as did the folks next door. They seemed surprised when I told them the worst was yet to come.
“The calm lasted for over an hour and then the experience of the afternoon was repeated, only the wind came from the south.
“At about nine thirty the wind seemed to lose its strength a bit and by midnight the worst was over. Part of our roof went during the last half of the storm and water leaked in everywhere.
Next week: The dawn
Tags: hurricanes
