Hurricane Andrew, which defines hurricanes today, killed 15 people in 1992. The unnamed hurricane of 1928, the subject of this book, took the lives of 1,836 Americans according to the official death toll. But in the summer of 2003, the National Hurricane Center prepared to change the official count to 2,500, making the storm the second deadliest disaster in American history.

Among the dead in 1928 were 700 black men, women and children who were buried in an unmarked West Palm Beach ditch during a racist recovery and rebuilding effort that conscripted the labor of black Floridians, like latter-day slaves. Those dead are still entombed beneath the streets of the city today.

Palm Beach Post reporter Eliot Kleinberg has penned the gripping and tragic tale of 1928's killer hurricane from dozens of interviews with survivors, diary entries, accounts from local and world newspapers, government documents, and reports from the National Weather Service and the Red Cross.
Caroll & Graf 2003 1st edition, 1st printing.

Black Cloud, the story of the Hurricane of 1928, chronicles the development and track of the hurricane and the effects on the people and towns in its path. Mr. Kleinberg’s extensive research is reflected on every page as he takes the reader into the lives of the Hurricane’s victims and survivors. 

The Hurricane of 1928 occurred at a time when hurricanes did not have names. It traveled through the Caribbean causing extensive destruction in Puerto Rico prior to arriving in Florida and then continuing up the East Coast, taking at least 7,000 lives. Mr. Kleinberg’s focus is on Florida. He discusses the inaccurate forecasting which led to the horrible consequences of delayed and minimal evacuation.

The hurricane was unusual in that it was not only about wind, but about water as well. It moved inland to Lake Okeechobee, caused severe flooding, and trapped and killed at least 1,500 people. This estimate is questionable even 75 years later, because the black victims were buried in mass graves, often without identification. Mr. Kleinberg uses dozens of personal histories to take the reader into the political climate, the racism, and the second class treatment of blacks.

Although too true, the book reads like a suspense story. It is about man vs. nature and man vs. man. Hurricanes cannot be prevented, but survival is dependent on responsible housing construction, bridge and dike building, and community planning. Black Cloud is not only the tale of the “Great Florida Hurricane of 1928”, but a good history of the development of Florida in the 1920’s and 1930’s.