The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1935-09-06
Storm Struck Area
May Breed Disease
MICHAEL j. HARMON, A. B.
Continued from Page u

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of the bodies Of victims may be
ordered after consulting with
state health officers"
President Roosevelt last night
requested that under no circum-
stances were bodies of vetreans to
be burned.
Sholtz ordered an investigation
by States Attorney George A.
Worley to determine why veterans
at work on FERA projects on the
storm wrecked Florida Keys were
not evacuated before the hurricane
struck.
| Federal officials at Washington
had conducted their own investi-
cation and referred to a "misun-
derstanding' of relief administra-
tor, Harry L. Hopkins, statement
clearing Florida federal officials
| of negligence, either in the mat
| ter of weather forecasts or evacu-
alton activities.
Sholtz planned a special tour OF
the area covered by a hurricane
! which wrecked the liner Dixie and
swept the lower Florida Keys
almost bare of human habitation.
Seeking More Dead
At dawn hopping up parties
were sent out through the man
groves and tangled debris of the
Keys to locate all the bodies Of the
dead.
Co CHI
were becoming increasingly urgent.
Two points of controversy devel-
oped in the wake of the savage
blast. One was the investigation of
weather reports and actions by
officials preceding the disastrous
effort to run a relief train into the
Keys in advance of the hurricane.
The other was in the furore
caused by a suggestion that the
bodies Of victims be burned. This
was the dispute in which Presi-
dent Roosevelt interviewed person.
ally last night.
President Roosevelt ordered a
second federal investigation of why
the veterans were not evacuated
from the Keys before the hurricane
struck. Governor Sholtz instruct
ed State Attorney George A. Wor-
ley to conduct a similar investi-
cation.
Blames Weather Bureau
Hopkins statement declared that
weather bureau reports of the hur-
ricane made it impossible to fore
tell that it was going to strike the
Keys and, therefore, his subor-
dinates were not responsible for
failure to get the veterans out.
After two weather bureau officials
had Indignantly protested that the
hurricane followed the bureaus
predictions accurately, spokes-
man for Hopkins said he had
never questioned the accuracy" of
the bureaus reports.
DIR. Isaac Moore Cline, principal
meteorologist of the New Orleans
weather bureau, and Walter J.
Bennett. senior meteorologist of
the Jacksonville bureau, declared
they had given accurate informa-
ton of the intensity and direction
of the hurricane three days before
the storm struck the Keys.
Florida relief officials sent a spe-
cial train into the Keys to evacu-
ate the veterans. 1t met the storm
and was wrecked.
Hines Is Ordered In
President Roosevelt ordere
Frank r. Hines, head of the vet
erans' bureau, and Hopkins to give
him the facts as quickly as posi-
BILE. Hines, designated Colonel
George F. Ijams to represent him
here.
Red Cross statistics showed
about 100 bodies recovered and
100 veterans injured. The veterans
were engaged in completing the
overseas motor highway from the
mainland to Key West
Red Cross officials said there
there were SIT veterans in the vi
cinity and that 375 had been def
nitely. established as living.
The order from Hyde Park that
no bodies were to be burned made
the task of removing them imper-
ative. 1t was gruesome one. The
bodies were already badly decom-
posed.
Once removed, the bodies are to
be taken to the central highway
running through the islands and
transported in trailers to Miami.
Special barges were consigned to
carry bodies found in the water by
the shallow-dr boats assigned to
the inlets and shore areas.
Stories of Heroism
Stories of heroism continued to
come from the hurricane area.
They were mingled with tales of
pathos, like the one of the hand
some shepherd dog which crouched
by the body of DR.. d. c. Main,
physician at one of the veterans
camps, until it was carried away.
One of the sad reports was that
of Captain Charles Albury of the
automobile ferry Monroe County,
from which two members of the
crew were washed overheard and
lost. Albury told of seeing a wo-
mans body in the top of tree,
tossed there and impaled by the
force of the wind.
Albury said waves ran Is feet
high at the time. Bodies of veter-
ans on lower Metacombc Key we've
strewn all over the lower end OF
the island, he said.
An odd incident narrated by the
captain concerned a small and
supposedly light autom obiie which
rode out the storm on the ferry slip
while two large and hoavv frucLu