Okeechobee Waterway of Orlando and extending southward through the Kissimmee River Basin to the Everglades National Park to Florida Bay. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages five locks and dams along the Okeechobee Waterway. The St. Lucie lock was built in 1941 for navigation and flood-control purposes. In 1944, the connecting spillway structure was built for flood and regulatory flow control through the St. Lucie Canal to manage the water level in Lake Okeechobee. The Port Mayaca Lock and Dam was built in 1977 for navigation purposes, to permit the raising of water levels in Lake Okeechobee, and to moderate the
Effects of the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane in Florida some men to break into the ice house, which would be a source of freshwater. Governor John W. Martin, along with Florida Attorney General Fred Henry Davis, chief engineer Fred C. Elliott, and Florida Adjutant General Vivian B. Collins, assessed the disaster area in the communities along Lake Okeechobee beginning on September 22. After the conclusion of the tour, Martin telegraphed every mayor in Florida to aid the victims of the storm and apologized for not issuing that appeal sooner. Martin also described the scene: With nearly 3,000 telephone poles damaged or snapped and 32,000 service outages, Southern Bell and