August 24,1992 | Hurricane Andrew anniversary (Miami, Miami Beach: hotel, homes, neighborhoods)

[Chelito23]

Originally Posted by cixcell

I'm really puzzled. how did you expect the house to make it through the storm well without boarding up the windows? once the winds get inside you have real problems. was hurricane knowledge just not widespread like it is today?

With the information age, things have changed. I think in general SoFla is much more prepared for hurricanes and aware of them. In the early 90s, SoFla hadn't had amajor storm in decades, so there was complacency and people expected Andrew to either "turn" or to not be as bad as it turned out to be. They were essentially forecasting a Cat 2 and saying to be prepared for a Cat 3 right up before the storm (at the last minute, the day before, they forecasted an actual 3). People made preparations accordingly...and as you could see with Wilma, many people didn't board up either and got through it fine, so there was probably some level of expectation that Andrew would only be as "bad" as Wilma and you might lose a window, but that the house wouldn't go.

Now, with that said, ALL newscasts were screaming that this was the real deal and much stronger the day before Andrew arrived (last minute). No one can say they were caught off guard completely and I can't for the life of me imagine how someone would have stayed in a house without shutters knowing what we did on the 23rd. There was no regular broadcast TV in South Florida, it was hurricane mode. Roads were backed up, people were fleeing to Orlando and other places. Most people that couldn't prepare went to shelters at the last minute when it was aparent what was about to happen.

As in this board, there were people who were in denial despite the writing being on the wall...but some people chose to ignore things and look the other way. People who didn't board up were in the VAST minority. There were people who couldn't board up some windows, but I hadn't ever heard of people only boarding up just one and the risking it in Andrew. A lot of people's shutters were blown off as well.

Bottom line is at the last minute, people knew Andrew was a major hurricane and had shelters as an option. I equate people who didn't board up (again, very few) with the few that chose not to evacuate New Orleans for Katrina (I am not referring to the poor that couldn't leave, rather the ones who chose to stay).

Some people like to rewrite history with Andrew...but the truth is, no one expected a Cat 5 or even a strong 4, but a damaging 3 was in order by Sunday afternoon and the meteorologists were saying that "tomorrow" would go down in history for the city, to take a good look around because the city would look different tomorrow, etc. Stores were in a frenzy, people were actually panicking to an extent. Some people, when faced with these situations, choose to isolate themselves from the madness and buried their heads in the sand. Those were the ones who retell the story as being "unprepared."

Regardless, even people who were "prepared" for a Cat 3 were not...so maybe it is a mute point. I don't think there was anything that could have been differently because the buildings just weren't up to code.

[FlyMIA]

Originally Posted by valicky

FlyMIA - you're the same age as one of my sons. I feel so old. I'll have to ask him what he remembers. I know he remembers the months afterwards spending hours and hours in Home Depot and Builder's Square. I'd like to get one clear hurricane panel or a hurricane window to be able to watch if we get another hurricane. It would have to come during the day because we lost power pretty early on and wouldn't have been able to see much anyway.

That is pretty funny. But also my current home has rolling/accordian shutters, we live on the water so one side of the house is all glass doors. The shutters actually have little plastic windows in them. In 1999 during the Irene that did hit us, I was looking out of one of these little windows and saw a 50ft yatch come up the seawall and back down and start to sink. Pretty good timing. The boat belonged to a neighbor.

[doom1001]

Country Walk resident at the time and basically it shredded the whole area,two story houses became one story,a couple houses totally collapsed,the trailer park across the street on the south side of 152 had maybe 5 trailers that still looked like trailers.The big old 200 foot tall concrete electric poles all came down on 152nd street,luckily they fell towards the street and not on the houses on the north inside Country Walk.My house had total roof damage and a big old piece of wood just went right through the wood house and sounded like a bomb,luckily we weren't in that room at the time.Basically it was 3-4 hours of winds that sounded like a train and thinking if it lasted for a long time the house would not stay up.Luckily it did pass fast,if it would have lasted longer forget about it!The 152nd street corridor aside from Homestead probably got some of the highest gusts,the Herald had an article that showed it had gusts in the 200mph plus range.

[tallrick]

I enjoy hurricanes at my parents home from my homemade shed. A bank teller window from Chase savings and loan has been on the east side since the late 80's. Poured concrete walls and roof filled with steel compliment the concrete filled steel door. A similar shed we built in 1988 was where a friend and his family rode out the storm in south miami heights. Country walk failed due to poor construction.

[valicky]

We really didn't think it was coming to Kendall and south of us. They were predicting it to be further north. As far as boarding up we couldn't board up any more. We had no wood, no shutters. My husband had to work up to the 23rd. He couldn't find wood anywhere when he got off work. He drove around and found a sheet of plywood at a construction site and used that. We really had no idea that Hurricane Andrew would or could be what it was. I think Charley was another storm that didn't go where predicted and was much worse than they thought.
Andrew was our first hurricane so we were naive about it. It was a great first hurricane! Wow! We sure did learn quick.
We had several friends that lived off of 152nd St and they were running from house to house as they each fell apart. Thank God it was a fast moving storm.

[Chelito23]

I remember that Andrew was due east of the Dade Broward line for days. So 2 and 3 days before, it seemed like the eye was going to come ashore between downtown MIA and FLL. Of course the technology wasn't as common, there weren't computer models or internet groups to discuss things, but they were saying the storms was going due west.

The day before (Sunday) they were saying that it was wobbling WSW and that it might make landfall in South Dade. At least that is how I remember it...I think in general people, the day before, thought it would hit somewhere in Dade county. But the way the TV anchors and weathermen were speaking was like no other time...so again, people who didn't expect a major hurricane had their heads in the sand IMO. Of course, no one imagined what really happened. Even the next day, we didn't know how bad it had been in South Dade (those of us in Central Miami Dade). At first they were showing scenes from Miami Beach, downtown and it was no big deal. Then Coconut Grove was shocking because of all the trees down. Then when they got to Kendall it was amazing. When they passed Kendall people realized what had actually ocurred. It looked like that part of the county had been wiped off the map. You couldn't recognize anything (from helicpoters), it was all debris and torn apart buildings.

[♥♥PRINC3Ss♥♥]

Originally Posted by cixcell

I'm really puzzled. how did you expect the house to make it through the storm well without boarding up the windows? once the winds get inside you have real problems. was hurricane knowledge just not widespread like it is today?

No it wasn't. We didn't board up the windows either. Not to blame the media but the forecast models were not very good back then. Nothing like Andrew had hit Miami in a long time so people didn't think it was gonna cause such damage.

All I kept hearing on the radio is that the government was lying about the death toll. You know there are always conspiricy theories, but if I had to believe in one, I would believe in this one. It's almost unbelievable that the death toll was so low with all the destruction, some areas looked like a bomb had exploted there.

Oh by the way I was awake during the storm, and even then they were still predicting the eye of the storm would go through Broward.

[cixcell]

some conspiracy theories id buy into. that would be one of them. another one would be how they downgraded the 1994 northridge quake in california from 7.4 to 6.7. bull----. lots of people speculated they did it when all these businesses started considering moving out of california right after the quake.

[Chelito23]

Originally Posted by ♥♥PRINC3Ss♥♥

No it wasn't. We didn't board up the windows either. Not to blame the media but the forecast models were not very good back then. Nothing like Andrew had hit Miami in a long time so people didn't think it was gonna cause such damage.

All I kept hearing on the radio is that the government was lying about the death toll. You know there are always conspiricy theories, but if I had to believe in one, I would believe in this one. It's almost unbelievable that the death toll was so low with all the destruction, some areas looked like a bomb had exploted there.

Oh by the way I was awake during the storm, and even then they were still predicting the eye of the storm would go through Broward.

Where did you live during Andrew and what media were you listening to that they were predicting a Broward landfall? No one ever specified a Broward landfall, especially late in the afternoon the 23rd as Andrew was wobbling SW at that point.

I think you said once you from Hialeah so I will assume you lived there back then...and I have a friend who lived in East Hialeah at the time...and I checked with her. She said all of her neighbors there boarded up too and that people were looking out peep holes in the doors and could see purple lightning as the power transformers exploded.

The Miami TV stations lost power, well I suppose we all did, but many stations went off the air and weren't even simulcasting on the radio. The left radio stations simulcasting NBC 4 (NBC 6 used to be NBC 4 and vice versa with CBS). Bryan Norcross was made famous for his Hurricane Andrew prep and walk through during the event. He never said Broward...and he was essentially the only person on the air at the height of the storm unless you were listening to a talking head read a script on radio from West Palm or something???

I think you live in a parallel reality sometimes princess! lol

[tallrick]

As far as I remember there were a lot of bodies being hauled away from some of the trailer parks. My initial esimate along with some of my friends is that 2-300 had died in the storm. No one will ever know how many undocumented were erased. The official prediction was a hit on Miami Beach/Coral Gables and I thought it had when the national hurricane center had its radar blown away.