Population Growth in Palm Beach County vs. Hurricane Strikes

Notice that most of the indirect and direct storm strikes occurred before the great majority of population arrived in the area.

Path of BIG Un-named Storm from 1928

Windspeed 130 miles per hour, 929 millibars of pressure, category 4. Pictures below show the local Lake Worth aftermath. This is the storm that killed thousands near Lake Okeechobee.

CLICK Here for video/film of damage - fascinating!

As related by Wikipedia:

Coastal damage in Florida near the point of landfall was catastrophic. Miami, well south of the point of landfall, escaped with very little damage; Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale suffered only slight damages. Northward, from Pompano Beach to Jupiter, buildings suffered serious damage from the heavy winds and 10 ft (3 meter) storm surge, which was heaviest in the vicinity of Palm Beach; total coastal damages were estimated as "several million" dollars. Because of well-issued hurricane warnings, residents were prepared for the storm, and the loss of life in the coastal Palm Beach area was only 26.^[1]

Aftermath of the hurricane in southern Florida

Inland, the hurricane wreaked much more widespread destruction along the more heavily populated coast of Lake Okeechobee. Residents had been warned to evacuate the low ground earlier in the day, but after the hurricane did not arrive on schedule, many thought it had missed and returned to their homes. When the worst of the storm crossed the lake — with winds measured on the ground at around 140 mph (225 km/h) — the south-blowing wind caused a storm surge to overflow the small dike that had been built at the south end of the lake. The resulting flood covered an area of hundreds of square miles with water that in some places was over 20 ft (6 m) deep. Houses were floated off of their foundations and dashed to pieces against any obstacle they encountered.^[10] Most survivors and bodies were washed out into the Everglades where many of the bodies were never found. As the rear eyewall passed over the area, the flood reversed itself, breaking the dikes along the northern coast of the lake and causing a similar but smaller flood.

Approximate area of the flood

Floodwaters persisted for several weeks, greatly impeding attempts to clean up the devastation. Burial services were quickly overwhelmed, and many of the bodies were placed into mass graves. Around 75% of the fatalities were migrant farm workers, making identification of both dead and missing bodies very difficult; as a result of this, the count of the dead is not very accurate. The Red Cross estimated the number of fatalities as 1,836, which was taken as the official count by the National Weather Service for many years; older sources usually list 3,411 as the hurricane's total count of fatalities, including the Caribbean. However, in 2003 the U.S. death count was revised as "at least" 2,500, making the Okeechobee hurricane the second-deadliest natural disaster in United States history behind the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Thousands of people were left homeless in Florida; property damage was estimated at $25 million ($200 million in 2005 US dollars). It is estimated that if a storm like this were to strike in modern times (the year 2003), it would cause $18.7 billion in damages. However, a levee breach of this kind is unlikely to occur again because of the much larger Herbert Hoover Dike that now contains the waters of Lake Okeechobee.^[10]

Record of All Storm Paths within 25 miles of Lake Worth

Not all of these are hurricanes - some are tropical storms and depressions - but scary none-the-less.

Hurricane History 1945 through 1950

In answer to my question in the previous post, I did a search on the NOAA website (click here). The above storm tracks are those that came within 65 miles of Lake Worth during the 1945 through 1950 period. Looks like a real barrage over that period of time. That is a real cool site, by the way. I encourage you to check it out.

Some of these storms were in the Category 4 range, but hard to determine if they were at that strength when they affected this area.

Mid-Century Beach - Casino Building Pictures

I am guessing that this is from the early 1950s. Look at the filled area behind the casino building which is now a paved parking lot. State Road A-1A looks like it has been relocated to its current location, in a two lane configuration. Notice how the proportion of beach to road to building is about the same as it is today.

This is probably taken about the same time. Notice that the western extension of the building is still here. Can't miss the filled area to the north along the Lake Worth Lagoon. Still looks pretty fresh. The "update" that made the building look the way it does today dates from 1949. The picture below shows how badly the building was damaged from Hurricanes in '46 and '47. Portions of A-1A were washed out which led to the relocation of the road along with western edge of the barrier island.

Anyone know the strength and the dates of the hurricane's that caused this damage? (This picture is of demolition of the second floor in process - not the damage from the hurricane itself. The hurricane took off most of the southern half of the roof.)

This one is dated 1981 - before the addition to the south side of the building. From this distance, it still looks intact - 25+ years ago now.

By the way, these pictures come from a State of Florida website called "The Florida Memory Project". I managed to lose myself in it while retrieving these images. You can check it out yourself by clicking here.

From 1955 Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce Poster...

Below are elements to a poster that dates from 1955. The poster appears minimized here, with the elements enlarged. Funny how the messages are eerily appropriate for today. Let me know if you know any of the names or recognize anyone in the pictures.

Especially interesting are the "Star Features" that include community goals reflecting a 1955 reality. With the exception of a few, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hope you get a kick out of these. Thanks to Nadine Burns for providing the copy!!

The "skyline" that never came to be.

Historic Districts - City Wide Map

Click link below for a large version of the historic district map.

Historic+Districts0001.jpg (image)

Reference: Lake Worth Historic District Maps

I thought you might be interested in these. The following maps show contributing and non-contributing structures in our six (6) historic districts. You will notice multiple maps for some indicating local and national districts. Requirements relating to the percentage of contributing structures are higher for national designations - as such, districts like Old Town have both local and national designation. The level of control is the same. The national designation signifies greater importance over a local designation and is really more of an honorary title.

These are apparently not available through the City's website so please feel free to access them here. Remember, by clicking on the image, you can enlarge them in another window for greater detail. By right clicking and selecting "save image", you can save them to your hard drive.

Enjoy!

Mohandas Gandhi

"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."

"An eye for an eye makes us all blind."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. "

"Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it."

"I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps."

"I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. "

"Peace is its own reward."

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

"Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear."

"We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?"

"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea."

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

This from Pam Lopez, City Clerk re Boards Eliminated

Please be advised that on June 25, 2007, the City Commission agreed to sunset the Ad Hoc, CIC, AHTF, and SAC boards. Therefore, the Ad Hoc and CIC will cease to exist on August 1, 2007; the AHTF has already sunset effective June 30, 2007; and SAC sunset effective June 26, 2007

Blog Stats: Numbers of Views and Unique Visitors

Since starting with the tracking software late in February of this year, these two graphs represent use statistics related to this blog. The one above indicates individual page views per month. That means the actual number of individual entries that are looked at while logged into the Blog. The graph below corresponds to the number of individual "unique" visitors to the site over the same amount of time. Obviously, each visit usually involves multiple views of individual posts. This counts just the unique visitors - not their number of visits. Of the almost 350 unique visitors to the site, most return every one to three days. They are not counted more than once during the month regardless of how many times they visit here.

Also note the "spike" in March due to the election. We are rapidly reaching that same level of use again.

Please realize that I do not have access to individual I.P.s and have no way of identifying who is visiting the site, unless someone leaves a comment at the end of one the posts and identifies themselves. However, I can tell when someone does a Google Search and comes to this site by that means. For example, up to this time today, three people "Googled" Wes Blackman and found the site that way. Many other referrers come from people who do a search for Lake Worth, or any other topic covered here. But I have no way of telling who those people are.

As always, thank you for dropping by and for all of the positive input!

Location of A-1A??

The following was posted on the Lake Worth Talk.com discussion board. This is part of the Commissioner Jennings treatise on building placement away from the Ocean. Look at the following vintage pictures and there is no road east of the road next to the Casino Building. Where and what is this poster talking about? These pictures probably date from the 1920s and 30s.

It's this type of erroneous information that we have to avoid spreading. And, yes I have been in the ocean at our beach many times and encountered the same thing. Could it be debris from a storm in the 40s? A more likely explanation.

it is interesting to me that nobody in the city wants to talk about moving the beach building to the lower level parking lot behind the dune. why? because it seems pretty obvious that a lot of erosion can take place in a short amount of time when you consider that you can take a walk on the old A1A if you just wade out into the surf at Lake Worth Beach about 15 feet. The rocks that line the coast there are the remnants of the old A1A which were overcome by a hurricane in the 1940s. While I hardly think anyone who advocates the GB plan actually uses the beach, I would suggest that they wade out and stand on the nice flat old road and think very hard about whether you should build anything at all so near to the ocean....

Lake Worth Beach: Natural Area Collection