OverseasFeature
Florida remembersHurricane Andrew after 10 years
MIAMI, (UPI) -- At 3 a.m., Aug. 24, 1992-- 10 years ago Saturday -- Hurricane Andrew raged ashore witha 17-foot-high wall of water. The coastline near Homestead, Fla.,moved inland about a mile.
But it was the wind that made Andrew a monster.One of the first things Andrew did was to smash the wind-speedgauge atop the hurricane center in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.The gauge registered 145 mph at the time but almost nobody believesthat's as high as it got.
Recent research by International HurricaneCenter, established in 1993 at Florida International University,place the top sustained winds at 165 mph or higher. There arediscussions about changing the records this week to match thatfigure.
Houses were flattened, mobile homes wereblown hundreds of yards from their moorings, roofs came off. Gustsof winds tossed cars and heavy furniture from demolished housesinto the air. Salt shakers and huge pieces of roof were foundside by side in the mud.
Within minutes, terrified residents of southDade County forgot about the damage to their homes, cars and belongings.They headed for interior closets, bathtubs and what few basementsthere are in the area to try to save their lives.
One young woman was killed when a beam toreloose from her house's framework and crushed her. Others diedin similar ways. Fifteen people died during the storm. As manyas 40 others died in the aftermath from construction accidents,downed power lines and the like. Twenty-six people were killedin Florida, the Bahamas and Louisiana.
"It got real scary when you could hearthe boards creaking and eventually coming off," said CindyMorgalo, who rode out the storm at a relative's house.
Four hours later, Andrew was gone, ragingon to Louisiana, where it caused more damage.
In Miami-Dade County, many people were unableto speak weeks after the hurricane hit. A house-to-house surveyby Florida International found one 17-year-old boy who to thisday refuses to go more than five blocks from his house. Divorcesincreased by 30 percent and domestic violence was up 50 percent.
Despite the presence of 22,000 militarypersonnel -- 7,000 Florida National Guardsmen to keep order andsome 15,000 federal troops to help with relief efforts -- lootingwas commonplace and the sound of gunfire was heard every night.
The damage was staggering. The devastationstretched for 21 miles -- nothing but rubble. Before Andrew, themost damage caused by a hurricane was $7 billion caused by Hugowhen it hit South Carolina in 1989. The National Hurricane Centerlists damage from Andrew at $26.5 billion and other estimatesrange all the way up to $30 billion in Florida and Louisiana.
Building codes were toughened in south Floridaimmediately, and statewide earlier this year, but there are stillsome problems with sloppy building.
More than 25,000 homes were destroyed and101,000 others were damaged. A grand jury report said 90 percentof all mobile homes in south Miami-Dade County were destroyed,and in Homestead it was 99 percent -- 1,167 of 1,176.
Insured losses alone were pegged at $16billion, a disaster for the insurance industry. It is still tryingto recover.
"Insurance companies refused to renewhomeowners' contracts and in fact revoked thousands of existingpolicies," said Sen.
Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who became state insurancecommissioner shortly after Andrew struck. "What shook upthe marketplace so much as the understanding that it Andrew turnedon degree to the north and devastated downtown Fort Lauderdaleinstead of downtown Homestead the damage would be $50 billion."
Techniques to forecast the track of hurricaneshave improved immensely in 10 years, although predicting changesin intensity still needs work. But there wasn't much wrong inthe forecast of Andrew leading up to landfall either.
"When I was doing a briefing on Friday,I said that it is not going to be a problem on the weekend,"said Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center atthe time. "Well, it was not a problem on the weekend butthings changed Saturday."
"Saturday morning was catchup timebecause we were behind the curve. We did not expect this to takeplace. It took up time to get people moving," Sheets said.
By Sunday, Andrew had muscled up. It developedwinds of 140 mph and headed straight for south Dade County. Itnever wavered and just about everybody in south Florida knew somethingreally bad was coming. But nobody could know how bad.
Now they know, and the fear that anotherHurricane Andrew could be much worse boggles minds all over Floridaand the insurance industry.
Florida International University's new InternationalHurricane Center is trying to gather knowledge to help, but thewarnings from forecasters are grim.
Although long-range forecasts for this yearare light, calling for average or below activity, forecasterssay we are in a long stretch of bad news hurricanes that willlast more than a decade.
"We have been very fortunate over thepast seven years in having only three major hurricanes make landfallin the United States, but we cannot expect this luck to continueindefinitely," said William Gray of Colorado State University,the nation's most recognized long-range forecaster.