A fascinating account of a diasater, little known outside of Florida. Well written. "Must reading" for people who wish to understand race relations in the 1920's in the South. Yet another account of how big business interests and government illogic combine to devastate the lives of the poor. Definitely a good read. ( )

I came across this book at one of those discount book stores in Myrtle Beach at the Tanger Outlet. I like to read about "disasters" and this one was very interesting. It's about a Hurricane that hit Florida in 1928. On September 16, 1928, this hurricane struck Florida. Although it was one of the deadliest hurricanes in history, taking the lives of 7,000 people as it swept from the Caribbean to Canada, it has been largely forgotten. Although he follows the hurricane through the Caribbean, he focuses on Florida. Many of the victims were poor black laborers who lived in communities near the huge inland Lake Okeechobee, where a flimsy dike broke and the water was pushed "across the land in a moving engine of death." For Florida's blacks, the tragedy was compounded by the fact that while white dead were usually given decent burial, nearly 700 African-American dead were unceremoniously dumped into a 1.5-acre mass grave in West Palm Beach. A lot of people (white and black) were gathered and cremated in fires for expediency and so many victims may not have been counted. I found this book very interesting and enjoyed the read. ( )

From the publisher:
The great hurricane of 1928 claimed 2,500 lives, and the long-forgotten story of the casualties, as told in Black Cloud, continues to stir passion. Among the dead were 700 black Floridians—men, women, and children who were buried in an unmarked West Palm Beach ditch during a racist recovery and rebuilding effort that conscripted the labor of blacks as latter-day slaves. Palm Beach Post reporter Eliot Kleinberg has penned the gripping and tragic tale of 1928’s killer hurricane from dozens of interviews with survivors, diary entries, accounts from newspapers, government documents, and reports from the National Weather Service and the Red Cross. Immortalized in Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, thousands of poor blacks had nowhere to run when the waters of Lake Okeechobee rose. No one spoke for them, no one stood up for them, and no one could save them. With historical photographs and heroic tales of survival and loss, this book finally gives the dead the dignity they deserve.