As a tropical storm, Andrew was something of a bust by the time the first Hurricane Hunter flight reached it on Wednesday, August 19, 1992. Still far out in the Atlantic with no clear center of circulation and rising barometric pressure, Andrew seemed to be a storm looking for a place to die.
But meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Florida, knew better than to turn their backs on the storm. Andrew was moving into an area where strengthening was possible, although none of the computer models agreed on just where it might go. In the early hours of Saturday, August 22, Andrew became the first hurricane of the year. With a large dome of high pressure building to the north of the storm, Andrew had picked up speed and was turning farther to the west by evening, with sustained winds blowing at 110 miles per hour.
Residents along Florida’s southeast coast awoke the next morning to find themselves under a hurricane watch, and many went in search of canned food, bread, and other staples, while others stripped home improvement warehouses of plywood. By midmorning the sound of hammers could be heard up and down the coast as windows were boarded up and other last-minute preparations were rushed to completion. Some locked up their homes and drove north or west, away from the approaching storm.
By noon, Andrew’s winds had increased dramatically to a sustained speed of 135 miles per hour, gusting to 165. A crew of meteorologists was dispatched from the National Hurricane Center in Miami to NOAA headquarters in Washington, DC, in case the center was disabled, since it now appeared as if Andrew would score a direct hit there. As night fell, Hurricane Center director Dr. Bob Sheets was the man in demand, fielding questions from a team of television reporters and issuing warnings and reports. On a monitor behind him, viewers watched a radar image of Andrew churning toward Florida like a giant red buzz saw.
As midnight approached, forecasters were alarmed to see that Andrew had gained even more strength as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Now screaming at 145 miles per hour, Andrew’s winds were gusting to an incredible 175 miles per hour as it bore down on the Florida peninsula. That same day, Hurricane Center meteorologist Stan Goldenberg’s wife had borne their first baby girl, and afterward he had rushed home to help his three sons and his sister-in-law’s family prepare for the storm.
As bad as Andrew was, research scientists say that hurricanes could get a lot worse if the earth’s atmosphere continues to heat up. They also speculate that in the event of an asteroid or comet impact, which rapidly heats ocean water, the result could be a “hypercane” 20 miles high with winds near the speed of sound.
Just before 5 a.m., the 2,000-pound radar dome on the Hurricane Center’s roof came crashing down after a wind gust of 150 miles per hour. At Goldenberg’s home, the winds had ripped plywood shutters from the windows, and flying debris sent glass shards flying into the house. The family fled to the kitchen, but the roof blew off and the walls began to fall around the frightened group. At the Hurricane Center, the howling winds finally destroyed the anemometer after it recorded its final reading: 164 miles per hour.
As dawn arrived the following morning, the winds were finally dying down, and dazed survivors emerged from the wreckage of their homes to a scene many likened to the aftermath of aerial bombing. Most trees were completely gone, and those few that remained were nothing but splintered trunks. The devastation stretched on for miles, with a few homes relatively untouched while others nearby were razed to their foundations. With streets covered with debris and landmarks either gone or unrecognizable, rescue workers became lost as they responded to emergency calls. Goldenberg and his family had survived the night after taking refuge at a neighbor’s house, but they returned to their home to find it mostly destroyed, one of its concrete-block walls resting on top of the family car.
The days to follow would be even more trying for residents, as the heat, humidity, and lack of water and electricity took their toll. Dazed homeowners picked through the wreckage, trying to salvage what they could while waiting for government relief workers to arrive. As bureaucrats bickered over what to do and when, Dade County Emergency Management Office director Kate Hale angrily asked, “Where the hell is the cavalry on this one?”
On Friday, a full four days after Andrew had ripped Dade County apart, 8,000 National Guard troops finally arrived with portable toilets, ready-to-eat meals, tents, food, and other necessities. Earth-moving equipment was brought in to clear streets of debris, and the business of clearing and rebuilding began.
The aftermath brought out the best and worst in human behavior. Atlanta-based Home Depot set up three tent stores in addition to its twenty-five Dade County locations and sold the basic products for restoring walls and roofs at cost. Members of the Grocery Manufacturers of America distributed food to hurricane victims free of charge, and cities all over Florida and in other states took up donations for relief supplies. The Charleston, North Carolina, Chamber of Commerce sent a team of disaster-resource specialists battle-hardened by Hurricane Hugo. By the weekend, twelve tent cities were taking shape with room for 36,000 people.
As The Miami Herald reporters investigated the damage, they discovered that many newer homes had been lost due to shoddy construction. Dade County building codes are among the most stringent in the country, but the Herald found that overworked inspectors were simply unable to cover all new construction adequately. Significantly, it was also discovered that a fourth of campaign contributions during the past decade had come from the building industry.
Andrew killed fifty-three and caused $25 billion in damage, making it, at that time, the costliest storm in US history. About 125,000 homes were partially or totally destroyed by the storm, and 7,800 businesses were affected, putting 120,000 out of work. The advanced state of hurricane prediction and massive evacuations were the main reasons why the death toll wasn’t higher.
There is a common misconception that Andrew was a Category 5 storm, but with its officially recorded 145-mile-per-hour sustained winds, it rated only a 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Nevertheless, Andrew was a wake-up call, not only for south Florida but for all East Coast residents. The last major hurricane to hit the area had been Betsy in 1965, followed by a lull that lasted an entire generation. Andrew brought that period of calm to a violent end, even as it raised the public’s awareness of killer storms and made it much less likely that anyone would be caught unprepared by the next one.