Caught in the Eye: Remembering the 1926 Hurricane

Archival photographs, film, newspapers and personal letters reconstruct the hurricane that struck Miami on September 18, 1926 and abruptly ended the city’s first major boom. Caught in the Eye: Remembering the 1926 Hurricane runs September 18 through April 11 at the Museum of Miami, opening exactly 100 years after the storm made landfall. The exhibition centers firsthand and secondhand accounts of the disaster while examining how the hurricane reshaped Miami’s society, economy and politics. Drawn from the museum’s archives, the exhibition follows residents through the deceptive calm before landfall, the violent winds and the dangerous lull of the hurricane’s eye, which led some people to believe the storm had passed. Historical illustrations broaden the story to include some of the earliest recorded hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean, placing the 1926 disaster within a longer history of communities confronting major storms. The exhibition also traces how lessons from the hurricane influenced Greater Miami’s approach to preparedness and recovery over the following decades, connecting the 1926 storm to later hurricanes including Donna and Andrew.