The fury of Andrew revisited. . .

Twenty years ago come Thursday, a Category 5 chainsaw called Hurricane Andrew cut a swath of ruin like no storm before it.
The Miami Herald, Sunday, August 19th.

You had to be there to truly understand it.

August 23rd, 1982 was a Sunday. When word came that Andrew was coming our way, the island on Biscayne Bay where I live was evacuated. At mid-day,I packed a few things into a duffle, stuffed my two cats, Pasha & Sasha, into one carry cage, and drove inland, south, to my daughter Andrea's home in Kendall. A really bad move. Who knew.

I'd been living in Miami since 1957 and the arrival of "hurricanes" was considered a good reason to party. So fear didn't enter into our consciousness as reports about Andrew started to flood the TV and radio news.

At Andrea's house we were two women, mother and daughter, and a 14 year old boy, my grandson Adam, plus 5. . I said 5. . .cats, my two and Andrea's three. As night fell and the wind and rain were definitely getting worse by the minute, we were faced with the fact that the entire back of Andrea's home consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors and no shutters (In those days I had no shutters on my waterfront condo, nor did any of my neighbors. Today they are mandatory.)

Suddenly aware of our vulnerability, we frantically searched for something to protect us from the possibility of broken glass. The only thing we could come up with was a series of 6' high cardboard posters with lifesize portraits of Adam in various sports outfits. . left over decorations from his recent bar mitzvah celebration. Hastily attached to the glass doors with tape, they would intermittantly be lit by lightning throughout the long night as we huddled together in the darkness on the hall floor.

We turned out to be one of the lucky ones on Andrea's block. She kept her roof on because her front door opened out and didn't blow in like so many others. For nine weeks after Andrew there was no electricity in her area as FPL struggled with downed trees and broken lines. Looting was rampant and Andrea was gratified to find many of her neighbors sitting on their front steps with a shotgun across their laps and signs that read "You loot. We shoot." And they weren't kidding.

My island survived Andrew with lots of damage but in better shape than Andrea's area. Our electricity came back in a little more than a week and my apartment welcomed a steady stream of friends who were still without and were dying for a hot shower. Hurricanes can really make you shift your priorities.

I don't find hurricanes funny any more. No one who lived through Andrew does. It may have happened 20 years ago, but in some ways it seems like yesterday. Reading about it on the front page of the Herald today brought it all back.
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Photo caption: Andrew approaches South Florida in full intensity.