1928: "three-fourths or more" of the dead were Black, many from the Bahamas (south shore of Lake Okeechobee, September 16, 1928)

SUMMARY1928: "three-fourths or more" of the dead were Black, many from the Bahamas (south shore of Lake Okeechobee, September 16, 1928) [Connections: Miami & Lake Okeechobee, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDThe National Weather Service Miami office page gives tolls from the Red Cross's 1,810 to the NHC's 2005 figure of "at least 2,500," and says "The exact number of those who perished in the Okeechobee storm can never be ascertained." It cites Lawrence Will's estimate that three-quarters or more of the dead were Black, many of whom had come from the Bahama Islands, and that their migrant lives and nicknames made them hard to count. Wikipedia: "Around 75% of the fatalities were among migrant farm workers," most of them Black, and "Authorities reserved the few caskets available for burials for the bodies of whites." Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is set in this storm

PATTERNA single storm killed more Black and Bahamian farmworkers than any other US weather event, and the system could not even count them

LENS (WW9)The lake took them; the record never named them

OPENLawrence Will's book (Okeechobee Hurricane and the Hoover Dike) for exact wording; Bahamian government lists of nationals lost

SOURCELake Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928 (NWS Miami); 1928 Okeechobee hurricane (Wikipedia).