Neue Freie Presse
- The hurricane in Florida: 1,215 dead, 5,000 injured; conflicting estimates of damage
The short Florida dispatch gives a large reported death toll and several incompatible loss estimates. Its wording repeatedly attributes the figures to reports. This partial reading covers that dispatch alone and preserves the figures as contemporary claims.
Left-column Florida cable, heading through final damage estimate; other first-page articles are outside this bounded reading.
Translation
The hurricane in Florida: 1,215 dead, 5,000 injured; conflicting estimates of damage
The hurricane in Florida
1,215 dead — 5,000 injured
Neue Freie Presse cable service (United Press)
New York, September 20.
According to the latest reports, the number of dead is given as 1,215 and the injured as 5,000. Property damage is put at 125 million dollars, or according to other reports at 150 to 200 million dollars; yet another report even claims to know of damage amounting to a billion dollars.
Context
News traveling through a cable service
The report carries a New York dateline and the name of United Press. The Vienna reader was receiving an international agency dispatch assembled outside the immediate disaster area. The succession of competing estimates reflects that distribution system: several reports could travel overseas before a comprehensive local survey had settled their differences.
The cost of a damaged city
The hurricane struck Miami with violent winds and a destructive storm surge. Houses, commercial buildings and essential services were damaged together, making property losses much broader than the cost of individual repairs. The newspaper’s enormous range of dollar estimates conveys how difficult it was to value a city’s destruction while access and communications remained disrupted.
From early estimates to a later count
The 1,215 deaths printed here were an early estimate, not the eventual Red Cross count. On October 9, that organization reported 372 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries, according to the National Weather Service’s history. Fatalities and injuries were revised in different directions as information accumulated; a disaster’s apparent scale did not change through one simple correction.
Original
Der Orkan in Florida. 1215 Tote — 5000 Verletzte. Kabeldienst der „Neuen Freien Presse“ (United Preß). Newyork, 20. September. Nach den letzten Meldungen wird die Zahl der Toten mit 1215 und die der Verletzten mit 5000 angegeben. Der Sachschaden wird mit 125 Millionen, nach anderen Berichten mit 150 bis 200 Millionen Dollar beziffert; noch eine Meldung will sogar von einer Schadenssumme von einer Milliarde Dollar wissen.
Der Orkan in Florida.
1215 Tote — 5000 Verletzte.
Kabeldienst der „Neuen Freien Presse“ (United Preß).
Newyork, 20. September.
Nach den letzten Meldungen wird die Zahl der Toten mit 1215 und die der Verletzten mit 5000 angegeben. Der Sachschaden wird mit 125 Millionen, nach anderen Berichten mit 150 bis 200 Millionen Dollar beziffert; noch eine Meldung will sogar von einer Schadenssumme von einer Milliarde Dollar wissen.