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Show 70, Jeffries, Islamorada [Section 2] "On your football team at the school, talk to Richie, the punter, Richard Russell is writing a paper about these ancestors-only eleven of seventy-seven Russells survived. "Wasn't there a story about a train, a relief train from the north?" "No luck for that train. You see the bonus army was trapped on Islamorada, the World War I vets doing highway construction work. Their foreman pled by phone to the railway headquarters in Miami; we know that call got through by 2:35 P.M. But the train crew was on holiday, and it took two hours to steam up Old 447 and to juggle some coaches, baggage cars, boxcars. "She pulled out at 4:25. Shortly she encountered an open drawbridge, masts of holiday boats passing on the Miami River below. "At Homestead, the engineer shifted the locomotive from the front to the rear of the train, so's she could pull out of the storm, not have to back out. Fifteen minutes for this. 5:15 P.M., and the hurricane had picked up the train's schedule. "At 6:50, top of Upper Matecumbe, a stop to pick up refugees. Damned if a loose cable, swinging beside the track, don't hook onto the cab. Eighty minutes of work to cut free. "Winds were gusting at 200. And, Dory, what's your normal barometric reading--?" "Thirty?" |