Lake Okeechobee is a large lake covering 730 square miles located in Florida approximately forty miles west of the Atlantic Ocean. Five counties border the lake, they are Glades, Hendry, Martin, Okeechobee and Palm Beach.

On September 10, 1928, a radioman aboard the S.S. Commack called in a storm report from a location 900 miles east of Guadeloupe. This was the most easterly positioned tropical cyclone ever reported up to that time. Modern day meteorologists believe the storm originated between Cape Verde and the African coast.

The storm grew into a Category three hurricane by the time it reached the Carribean. It hit Guadeloupe on September 12, 1928 and then skirted south of the other Leeward Islands. From Guadeloupe came reports of barometric pressure recordings of 27.76 inHG. A ship south of St. Croix reported it even worse with a pressure drop to 27.50 inHg. The storm left twelve hundred dead in Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe had received little or no advance warning of the hurricane’s approach.

On September 13, it struck Puerto Rico as a full blown Category Five hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 160 mph! The anemometer used to take that reading was eventually destroyed by the high winds. Puerto Rico had received ample warning of the storm’s approach and there were at least three hundred people dead in Puerto Rico as a result of it. Up until that time, it was the highest wind speed ever recorded for an Atlantic hurricane. Hurricane force winds were experienced in Guayama for eighteen hours as the big storm passed. The movement of the hurricane was estimated to have been 13 mph, indicating a diameter of 234 miles of hurricane force wind.

Following Puerto Rico, the storm lost a bit of strength as it moved across the Bahamas as a Category 4 hurricane. It continued in a north-westerly direction, toward the southern coast of Florida.

Representatives of the U.S. Weather Bureau were confident that the storm would miss south Florida. As the hurricane approached, it became very obvious that their original estimates were wrong, it would strike Florida. In the final minutes of September 16, 1928 or the earliest minutes of September 17, the hurricane made landfall in Palm Beach County near West Palm Beach. After landfall, the sustained winds were near 150 mph with gusts up to 160 mph.

The storm moved directly over Lake Okeechobee, creating a storm surge on the lake that swept over dikes at points around the lake. Residents of the low-lying areas around Lake Okeechobee left the area following earlier warnings, but as it appeared the hurricane had missed them, they returned to be caught in the middle of it. The flooded area covered hundreds of square miles. dikes located on the south part of the lake and those located on the north part were breached. The flood water in some areas was twenty feet deep.

Over 2,500 people died in south Florida, with many of those being swept into the Everglades. Along its complete path, the storm had cost over 4,000 lives.

As the hurricane crossed Florida, it turned in a northeast direction, traveling through northern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. It eventually moved inland and at some point around Toronto, it merged into a low pressure system on September 19.

THE PORT MAYACA CEMETERY: Following the storm, over 1,600 unidentified people were interred at Port Mayaca Cemetery, located in the tiny community of Port Mayaca, Florida. The cemetery was originally operated by the cities of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay, but today, it is operated and maintained by the city of Pahokee only. The cemetery is located at the intersection of S.W. Kenner Highway (State Road 76) and S.W. Gaines Highway (State Road 15).

HURRICANE OF 1928 AFRICAN AMERICAN MASS BURIAL SITE (AKA PAUPERS CEMETERY): Following the hurricane of 1928, hundreds of bodies of Black citizens were buried in a mass grave in West Palm Beach. Many of these were believed to have been migrant farmer workers, others lived in the lower-cost housing located in the low-lying areas around Lake Okeechobee. On September 12,2002, it was placed on the US National Register of Historic Places. It is located in West Palm Beach, near the intersection of 25th Street and Tamarind Avenue.

This hurricane was the first to hit the US as a known Catagory five. Its devastation, especially in loss of human life is second only to the Great Galveston Storm of 1900.