On Labor Day 1935, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States exploded into a Category 5 storm and slammed into the Florida Keys with estimated sustained winds of 185 mph and a central pressure of 892 mb, the lowest pressure assigned to a U.S. hurricane landfall.

But this disaster is about much more than the storm itself. Hundreds of World War I veterans were living in federal work camps along the Keys, and an evacuation train sent from Miami reached Islamorada just as catastrophic winds and storm surge arrived.

In this episode of Meteorology Matters, we reconstruct the extraordinary meteorology, the primitive forecasting network that struggled to locate the hurricane, Leonard Povey’s historic reconnaissance flight, the desperate rescue-train mission, survivor accounts, and the controversial aftermat ...