Miami Daily News, Sept. 16, 1945.
Seventy years ago today, September 15, 1945, a hurricane made landfall in Key Largo and then swept across Miami and Homestead, Florida. It was a Category 4 storm, and winds of 145 mph were clocked at Homestead Army Air Corps Base. Most of the city of Homestead was destroyed, and at Richmond Naval Air Station, a fire ignited during the storm burned down three hangars. 1632 homes were destroyed in Florida, and there were four deaths.
Amateur radio had not yet returned to the air after V-J Day, but hams were still available to help, since they formed the core of the War Emergency Radio Service, which had been formed during the War to allow hams to provide emergency communications for both civil defense and during natural disasters.
The November 1945 issue of QST reported “September Hurricane Finds Miami WERS Ready.” The Dade County civil defense operated under the call sign of WKNW, which used hams to link ten district headquarters stations to the main control station on the roof of the fifteen-story Technical Vocational Building. A Red Cross mobile disaster unit was also equipped with radio, as were a number of privately owned mobile units. Operations began as soon as the wind subsided enough for operators to get to their designated stations.
At the peak of the storm, all lines to the civil defense headquarters were down, and the WERS station, manned by hams and powered by an emergency generator, was the only link. When the phone line to Jackson Memorial Hospital went out, one of the mobiles was dispatched to that location, and contact was re-established in fifteen minutes.
When it was clear that Homestead had suffered damage, a convoy of vehicles set out from civil defense headquartrs. The antenna at headquarters had been repeatedly destroyed, and a temporary antenna was set up inside, with only limited range. Since it couldn’t reach Homestead, one of the mobile hams in the convoy backtracked until reliable communications was established. However, with the 2-1/2 meter equipment in use, it was not possible for that station to reach all the way to Homestead. It wasn’t until the third day that a reliable link was established between Miami and Homestead, after which a considerable amount of traffic flowed.
Singled out for praise were W4NB, W4AFF, W1KVB, W4CFC, w1JMT, and W4ANP, along with two other hams who were licensed after Pearl Harbor and hence had no amateur call sign. Of those calls, the only one where I could find any later reference was Francis W. Jenard, W1JMT, who died in 1999, according to a QST Silent Key listing. He was a member of the ARRL A-1 Operators Club, and you can see his 1963 QSL card at this link.
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