The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1939-09-02
Lowering Writes About
Hurricane And Railroad

seAf
Continued from Page One)
move any more than the emble-
NAUTICAL Rock of Ages. A..
|. A Windy Island and Whale
Harbor some scenes of devastation
and rehabilitation mingle to oblit-
crate every memory of the geo.
graphy of that other day. An
arching bridge rises on creosote
pilings alongside where once the
Extension ran; fragments of rail-
road trestle appear toward the
Gulf; many stout braces are yet
in position. In the Gulf waters
railroad ties stand on end with
the rails attached as one holds
the fingers of his hands toward
the sky. the rails like slender
brown bands stretched sidewise
in the sun.
For a long while, from where
the string of ties was canted, a
single piece of rail extended in a
perfect curve with no ties attach
ed, to join another section of the
storm-warped track resting part
ly above the gaily colored wa
ter. there the suns bright flash
light etched a hundred feet of
gale blown railroad iron over
which the splendid Havana Spe-
cial used to steam, its oil burn
ing locomotive smudging fare
well to Winter against South
Florida Summer skies in wind
blown autograph. track flat on
the bed of the bay. Tiny ripples
play around it; gay-tinted fish
dart hither and yon. :.
Yesy you realize now. this
track was torn from the naked
trestle above your head. But
where are the barnacles and sea
vegetation; the familiar water
marks on the piles? And some
of the stone exposed is granite in
the spaces between the yawning
timbers. granite didn't grow on
the Florida Keys. The hurri-
cane revealed a secret of railroad
construction known to few except
the courageous Flagler engineers.
Across the original low-lying is
lands filling was more economical
than viaducts or bridge work. So
piling was driven along the line
of the survey, and braced and
capped; and stone filling from
near Flagler's birthplace at Cam
andaigua, New York, was brought
to the Extension and lightered to
the grade" to mingle with Flor
ida coral rock and mari. The
mari was heaped on the outside;
the water made it slick, the waves
slid over it like oil. the hurri-
cane disclosed the timbered
skeleton which held compact the
filling of the ocean-going road
bed across the low, flat islands
+. and, too, it revealed the weak
ness of Flagler's engineers. :.
Railroad grade" thus built
over the shadows of Florida Bay
formed a dam which kept hurri-
cane waters out of their natural
course into the Gulf and back
again. Flagler's generals learned
it to their sorrow and at ire
cost further down the
line in 1909. That storm tore out
many miles of rock-filled trestle
. threw siv and ten-ton boulders
about like marbles; compelled
the sea-going ARMY to build 18
miles of bridges spanning low
reefs, instead of six.
In the vicinity of Whale Har-
Dor the .bracedtpila rock-filled
roadbed was allowed to stand.
and the hurricane of 1855 Labor
Day heaved the work away in
the tidal waves. The same con-
struction is visible in different
way at Lower Matecumbe. There
when the Overseas Highway was
building, a huge, wide fill led to
the first bridge passing Jewish
to Long Key. The brunt of the
blow struck there. wiping out
Veterans Camp No. complete
ly. But this wave washed only
the top from the fill, exposing as
in a birds eye view the upper
timber work around which the
fill was originally made.