Hispanic-American Lifesavers Pablo Valent, Mariano Holland and Indalecio Lopez and the Florida Keys Hurricane of 1919

"The rescue of the crew of the water-logged schooner Cape Horn on September 16, 1919, by the crew of Coast Guard Station No. 222 (coast of Texas) affords an instance of wreck service in which superb surfmanship, added to dogged grit, overcame well-nigh insuperable difficulties and brought success to hazardous effort.”
Treasury Department Annual Report, 1920

Hispanic American personnel have served in search and rescue operations since the nineteenth century. For example, in 1899, James Lopez of the Provincetown (Massachusetts) Life-Saving Station became the first Hispanic American service member to receive the Silver Lifesaving Medal. But the greatest number of Hispanic American personnel served not in stations along the East Coast, but in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.

In Texas, the Brazos Life-Saving Station, now known as the South Padre Island Station, employed several distinguished Hispanic lifesavers. In 1897, surfmen Telesford Pena and Ramon Delgado became two of the first Hispanic Americans to join the U.S. Life-Saving Service. Over the years, the Brazos crew endured numerous storms and hurricanes, including the deadly Galveston Hurricane of 1900; however, none of them proved as memorable as the killer storm of 1919.

Early September 1919 found Hispanic American personnel BM1 Pablo Valent and surfmen Mariano Holland and Indalecio Lopez serving out of the Brazos Station. Unknown to these men, a tropical disturbance in the Lesser Antilles had spawned a hurricane, which grew rapidly into a category four storm. The hurricane grazed the Florida Keys and headed into the Gulf of Mexico. This hurricane would later be named the “Florida Keys Hurricane” and in its path sailed numerous unsuspecting vessels, several of which would be lost with all hands.

One of these ships, the seventy-seven-ton schooner Cape Horn, had been fishing far out in the Gulf. The storm descended on the schooner and its crew of eight on the night of September 13th, capsizing the vessel and flooding the hold. The crew managed to cut away the sails and rigging allowing the mastless vessel to right itself and, for the next two days and nights, the men clung to the foundering hulk as the super hurricane pushed it to toward the Texas coast.

On the morning of September 16th, the Brazos Station lookout spotted the Cape Horn lying low in the water with stumps for masts. It was obvious that the schooner was about to sink and action was necessary. Along with keeper Wallace Reed, Valent, Lopez, Holland and the rest of the boat crew launched the surfboat in some of the worst sea conditions ever experienced in the area. Waves broke as far out as the eye could see and the bar over which they passed to reach the Gulf was a cauldron of cross currents, roiling seas and angry whitewater. The surfboat shipped seas constantly, throwing the crew from side to side, putting the surfboat on beam ends and ejecting the boat over bruising combers. Several times the surfboat jumped clear of the water only to come crashing down into the troughs below. Keeper Reed, a veteran of twenty years had never fought such seas before.

After battling the elements for two hours, Valent, Lopez, Holland and the rest of the crew managed to reach the foundering schooner. Cape Horn’s dispirited crew clung to the hulk even with heavy seas surging over her decks. To avoid wrecking the surfboat against the submerged vessel, the Brazos crew rowed their boat to the rescue in the interval between each breaker, snatching off the schooner’s survivors one at a time. The eight survivors crowded in with the seven Brazos Station crewmembers for the ride back to shore.

Unfortunately, the trip to shore appeared more perilous than the struggle to reach the ship as heavy seas formed into huge waves cascading toward the beach. And there was no turning back, because the Cape Horn had slipped below the waves shortly after the survivors were taken off. As the surfboat neared the shore, Keeper Reed found the surf pummeling the beach furiously and had to choose a landing point two miles from the original embarkation point. Though men like Valent, Lopez and Holland were skilled surfmen, the boat shipped seas constantly as huge waves boarded the vessel from the stern.

With his crew soaked and exhausted and the Cape Horn survivors clutching the thwarts and gunnels for safety, the odds weighed heavily against a safe landing. Keeper Reed deployed the surfboat’s drogue, a service-issued canvas bucket device designed to work like a sea anchor. This contrivance controlled the boat’s speed as it surfed the accelerating waves and helped Reed steer the boat in the direction of the beach.

Disaster struck within 100 yards of land when heavy seas burst the drogue. With deadly breakers curling all around, the loss of the drogue could send the surfboat into the oncoming rollers, overturning the boat and killing or injuring those inside it. In more than one such instance, the entire Coast Guard crew of the surfboat had been lost. But Valent, Lopez, Holland, Keeper Reed and the rest of the crew managed to hold the boat steady using their oars and with the aid of the boat’s engine powered onto a towering wave headed for shore. Riding on the crest of the roller, the surfboat accelerated toward the beach and, without any final effort by the crew, landed high and dry without spilling overboard any of the fifteen occupants.

The Cape Horn rescue proved a complete success. In addition to bringing back the schooner’s crew alive, the Brazos men skillfully navigated their surfboat back onto the beach without serious damage. For their death defying feat, the Brazos men, including Valent, Lopez, Holland and the rest of the crew received the Silver Life-Saving Medal. This was only the second time in history that Hispanic American lifesavers had received the award. The men also received the Grand Cross Medal from the American Cross of Honor Society for their act of “unusual heroism.”

Pablo Valent had a successful career in the United States Coast Guard. In 1935, he took command of the Brazos Station (a.k.a. Port Isabel Coast Guard Station), becoming the first Hispanic American in the service to do so. In 1940, Valent retired after twenty-eight years of service in the Coast Guard.

The Florida Keys Hurricane of September 1919 was one of the worst in Texas history. It heavily damaged the Brazos Station and leveled the Coast Guard Station at nearby Aransas. In addition to the scores of men and women lost in the Gulf, hundreds also lost their lives along the flooded Texas coast.