The “unprecedented hurricane” that struck the Caribbean in October 1924 was the most powerful anyone could remember.
A hurricane is really defined as a violent storm with wind speeds exceeding 74mph (119km/h). When the Saffir-Simpson scale was devised in 1971 to grade the destructive potential of storms, the 1924 event was the first on record to have made the top classification, category 5.
The storm clipped the western tip of Cuba, killing about a dozen people before heading across the Caribbean.
“The whole sea was a boiling, seething mass,” reported the captain of a steamship transporting fruit. “It appeared as if the surface were covered with a mass of turbulent steam. The sea was breaking in such manner as it was impossible to tell whether the water in the air was rain or sea water.”
The waves were mountainous and the storm had overturned several small fishing boats, but while the fruit ship took on a considerable quantity of water, it managed to stay afloat.
After leaving Cuba, the hurricane did not make landfall again until it reached Florida. By then it had weakened and householders had battened down in response to warnings issued by the US Weather Bureau. The result was that one of the most powerful hurricanes on record did relatively little damage.
