Hold Back the Waters
'Twas in the late twenties
that there come a big flood,
It drownded four thousand,
their graves was the mud.
'Twas nothing could withstand that tidal wave,
And the ghosts of the vanished
still cry from grave.
Lord hold back the waters of Lake Okeechobee
for Lake 0keechobee's blue waters are cold;
When wild winds are blowin across Okeechobee
They're calling and seeking for other poor souls,
Oh Lake Okeechobee's blue waters are cold.
The Seminole left there
In haste and with speed;
Their wise words of warning
Were given no heed.
When the waters receded,
Great God, what a sight!
Men, women and children
Turned black as the night.
Lord hold back the waters of Lake Okeechobee
for Lake Okeechobee's blue waters are cold;
When wild winds are blowin a cross Okeechobee
They're calling and seeking for other poor souls,
Oh Lake Okeechobee's blue waters are cold.
Now Lake Okeechobee
Is calm and serene;
The land all around it
Is fertile and green;
But the people get fearful
When the wild winds do roam;
They look at the earth dam,
And they think of their home.
The story of the Florida hurricane of 1928 ....
Lake Okeechobee, in South Central Florida just north of
the Everglades, is the second largest freshwater lake wholly within the U. S. It covers seven hundred fifty square miles.
In early September of 1928, Seminole runners were sent
out by the council to warn the white settlements in the LakeOkeechobee vicinity to leave this area quickly . . ."Bad storm come soon, many big wind, many water, much bad . . . Go !"
But the people did not heed this warning. The Seminole
departed in all haste, leaving behind dire predictions.
On September 12 17, a hurricane sweeping out of the
West Indies virtually lifted the waters from the lake bed
and sent them swirling down onto the adjacent countryside. Hundreds upon hundreds were drowned.
Now earthen levees surround Lake Okeechobee. But
when the wild winds roam, people look at the earth dams
and think of their home.
