Hurricane Andrew one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. According to NPR, it was the second costliest storm after Hurricane Katrina.
In August of 1992, my parents were living in South Florida near Miami. Despite having lived in Florida for many years, they had never experienced a hurricane.
They figured their relatively new house would protect them. All they did was put some tape on their windows.
The following day, images of devastation started coming in. My father’s work was near ground zero, so he went to check on it.
He was somber while describing what he experienced,
“The highways were completely blocked, like a parking lot. For every house left standing, another was destroyed. All street signs were gone. All cell towers were down.”
Interestingly, it took a long time for there to be any real coverage of the disaster.
“It was a pre-internet, pre-social media world. We had very little news from the ground. With Andrew there was a 25 foot storm surge. Anchors could not stand out with their raincoats and play the hero,” my dad explained, “It wasn’t until half way through the day after landfall that you started seeing helicopters. Nobody could get gas, food or basic necessities like water.”
The day after the disaster, a New York Times headline read, “Hurricane Rips Through Florida and Heads Into Gulf.”
The devastation of Andrew eventually spread around the country and the world.
As a result of Andrew, my dad takes hurricanes and insurance much more seriously.
He has seen first hand the total destruction that they have the potential to bring.
He never takes his life for granted. He understands how easily they could’ve been killed due to their lack of preparedness had the storm decided to hit closer to their house.
His business, which was struggling before Andrew, was able to help rebuild the city. From August until March of the following year, he only spent 15 nights at home. He spent most nights sleeping at the branch, and working to help rebuild.
Because the storm happened over twenty years ago we do not have the same amount of home video footage that we do from Katrina and Sandy.
We did not see live tweets from people in the center of it all, or know minute by minute details.
Nonetheless, for those who lived through its devastation, Andrew left a deep and lasting impression.