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I was 41 when Andrew hit. We were told that Andrew was heading for the Dade/Broward county line. I know several people in the Kendall/north Dade area who moved in with friends in south Dade to avoid the worst part of the storm. Due to the strength of the storm, and fear of flooding, etc. the entire part of south Dade (I think all that was south of ~ 216th Street was an evacuation zone. I stayed with friends in a well built home very near to South Dade High School.
Yes, thank you. If they said it was going south 12 hours before, that was too late!!! You can't prepare 12 hours out. The plywood was probably sold to coastal residents and those further north. And believe me, Home Depot didn't stock and bring in plywood like they do now. If you're willing to wait in line now, you WILL get plywood. It wasn't like that in '92. I'm thinking Chelito was very young. It was a very small minority that boarded up in West Kendall. I know because my husband has a window coverings business and he had work for years and years because so few boarded up their homes. We paid off our mortgage with all that work. Hurricane Andrew was very good financially for us.
Shoddy construction did have a lot to do with our damage. Our roof damage was not from the inside out. The shingles started peeling away, then the paper, then finally the plywood. The rood didn't bust out. You could see some areas that didn't go all the way to the plywood. When we had the roof replaced, our next door neighbor, who happened to be a roofer did it. After Wilma, we went back to look at our old neighborhood. The roof was perfect. Not a single shingle gone. Wilma wasn't an Andrew, but we did lose tiles on our new home, but not one shingle on the old house. Also, positioning had a lot to do with how your home fared in Andrew. In our neighborhood we could see varying degrees of damage depending on which way your home faced and where it was situated between other homes.
My point is, a lot of people who didn't have shutters either went to a safe place or to a shelter, regardless of if they lived at the coast or not. I never heard projections the storm was going north, people were fleeing north and the hotels were booked up that way for hundreds of miles. I have a coworker who tells stories of being in grid lock on the turnpike just past Palm Beach county on the stretch where it parallels 95 and 95 (no tolls) was flowing fine!! So people were heading up that way to get away, not to be in it's path. You didn't see anyone fleeing to Dade county!!! But like I said we had different experiences and clearly different recollections of the event. People who look into archived articles and news clips online can see for themself what the forecasts and warnings were.
I can guarantee you that the Jupiter Beach Resort (not sure of the name, but it's the only hotel on the beach in Jupiter) was closed because they thought Andrew was going there. This was on Saturday before the storm. My husband was finishing up whatever jobs he had so we could get away for a few days. We did get to go to Disney World about 2 weeks after Andrew. Best thing about it was the A/C in the hotel!
If I remember there was quite a bit of ignorance or just unawareness as people thought the further inland they were, they would not be affected by the storm, so they did not prepare the way the coastal residences did.
Yes, there is so much emphasis on coastal flooding, that the danger of the high winds further inland was not also impressed upon residents. These days are over! We learned so many lessons from Hurricane Andrew. eek!
I can guarantee you that the Jupiter Beach Resort (not sure of the name, but it's the only hotel on the beach in Jupiter) was closed because they thought Andrew was going there. This was on Saturday before the storm. My husband was finishing up whatever jobs he had so we could get away for a few days. We did get to go to Disney World about 2 weeks after Andrew. Best thing about it was the A/C in the hotel!
Sure, that hotel closed. It was one the beach, sounds logical. I don't think hotels on Miami Beach or the Keys were open for business either. And 12 hours is perfectly enough notice to realize you needed to be in a safer spot and head to a shelter or to a friend. Let's not rewrite history like Miami was supposedly in the clear.
It seems like a lot of people are trying to justifiy their poor decisions and blame the weather. At the end, no one thought Andrew was heading to Broward unless they were wishcasting it to go there. There are videos on Youtube that have news anchors, the Nat'l Hurricane Center and meteorologists saying it was heading to Miami. The Keys were evacuated...so that should have told people something in South Dade. People who did not board up did not prepare in time is the bottom line. They didn't take the threat seriously enough and if they did and were helpless because they couldn't protect their homes, there were shelters and everyone knew someone who boarded up. This was standard advise on the airwaves at the time.
The only thing I think I will concede is that days out they were saying the storm was due east of the Broward Dade county line...but the storm was wobbling back and forth and no one ever said the worst part was going to Broward or Dade was in the clear. They were saying SE Coast, that includes South Dade!! This was something that people in denial in South Dade heard early on. If they kept tunning in, they would have realized the storm actually moved West South West. And mind you, the majority of the people in South Dade did prepare...but not enough. Or their homes weren't built well or the storm was too strong. But to blame it all on not knowing is very disingenuous.
I was in High School at the time...and this was before internet so all I did was watch coverage prior to landfall. So I was pretty aware...more so than aparently some of the "older" posters who were "caught off guard".
I was in high school and living in Cutler Ridge when Andrew hit. We lived in a very low lying area that was part of an evacuation zone. Since we were not used to hurricanes, our main concern was flooding. Before we evacuated, we took care to elevate our electronics and valuables in the hope that they would survive a big storm surge. Since we had hurricane shutters, we expected the home to remain intact and just thought "if we can avoid a big storm surge, we'll be ok". We came home to a house that had not been flooded but instead had fallen apart from the wind damage. Some of our shutters even blew off. What did our house in, though, besides it's location, was the garage door. That sucker blew off and let in a ton of wind. Once in, the wind had nowhere to go but up through our roof. The house had to be completely rebuilt.
I have a ton of memories from Andrew but the most vivid include being on a street corner a few blocks from home and not recognizing where I was (very odd feeling), waiting in a huge traffic jam at Kendall and US1 to be allowed south (National Guard was checking for proof of address before letting folks down south), all the looting fears and neighbors keeping watch with their shotguns and seeing a newspaper for the first time the Saturday after the storm. It was very strange seeing a newspaper after being in a news void for almost a week. It definitely felt very post-apocalyptic what with the lack of food, water, power and news, and the presence of the National Guard (once the president finally sent them). Having to start school two weeks later seemed almost impossible at the time but in the end it probably helped establish some sense of normalcy. It was a "new normal" that's for sure.
The only thing I think I will concede is that days out they were saying the storm was due east of the Broward Dade county line...but the storm was wobbling back and forth and no one ever said the worst part was going to Broward or Dade was in the clear. They were saying SE Coast, that includes South Dade!! This was something that people in denial in South Dade heard early on. If they kept tunning in, they would have realized the storm actually moved West South West. And mind you, the majority of the people in South Dade did prepare...but not enough. Or their homes weren't built well or the storm was too strong. But to blame it all on not knowing is very disingenuous.
I was in High School at the time...and this was before internet so all I did was watch coverage prior to landfall. So I was pretty aware...more so than aparently some of the "older" posters who were "caught off guard".
I think you need to go back and reread the posts because you must have misunderstood them. I didn't blame anybody. All I said that the technology back then was not as advanced as it is now. The forecast models were not as good as they are right now All the media did was work with whatever they had available back then.
We can keep going in circles and you can keep calling me disingenuous but that's not gonna change the fact that my home was not the only home that didn't board up in Andrew. I just came here to share my experience. Again I didn't blame anyone and I won't speak for the other posters but from what I remember no one here is blaming anyone either.
Purchased home in 1986. Paid off mortgage in 1993. It was courtesy of all the work my husband had due to so many people not boarding up their windows. My husband is a tiny little one man company. I'm sure the big guys had way more business than he did. In comparison, the 2005 hurricanes brought us a little rise in business, but it was no where near what we had in '92. Why? Because in 2005, the majority did board up or had shutters. In 2005, I didn't see ANY house that wasn't boarded up. BIG difference from 1992 when it was the minority that boarded up.
Hindsight being 20/20, knowing how my home would fare in Andrew, I still wouldn't have evacuated. We had a safe, windowless room and while it was scary, I never thought OMG, this is it, we're going to die. If we would've lived in a wooden Country Walk home, then yes, we would've probably went to someone else's home.
I think you need to go back and reread the posts because you must have misunderstood them. I didn't blame anybody. All I said that the technology back then was not as advanced as it is now. The forecast models were not as good as they are right now All the media did was work with whatever they had available back then.
We can keep going in circles and you can keep calling me disingenuous but that's not gonna change the fact that my home was not the only home that didn't board up in Andrew. I just came here to share my experience. Again I didn't blame anyone and I won't speak for the other posters but from what I remember no one here is blaming anyone either.
Princess...the quote I responded to wasn't even from you and you are telling ME to go back and re read and that I misunderstood LOL.
A few details I remember, communicating daily with my parents and sister post-Andrew:
* They didn't have electricity for nearly a month. The neighbor's tree had fallen on the power line and knocked out the grid in that area. The neighbor children would swim in my parents' pool to take a shower. Somehow the man next door and my dad were able to cross wire the phone line so both families had phone service, like an old party line. Initially my parents were without a working phone.
* A treat was a dollar theater on Bird Road. I think it was in the 112th Ave. area, give or take. That theater reopened and had electricity, i.e. air conditioning. I'd talk to my parents on the phone and they'd be looking forward to the movies, no matter what they were showing, after miserable daylight hours in the humidity.
* Ice was a cherished commodity. I think the grocery chains were making it available at certain times and people would swarm to get a bag or two, whatever the quota.
My dad still talks about an incident that happened on the way to get ice, far south of his home. A police officer didn't bother to look and slammed smack into my parents' Toyota Cressida while he was pulling onto the road from the left side. My parents were in disbelief when the officer was livid and actually trying to claim they were at fault. At that point a little old lady in her 80s walked to the scene and started wagging her finger at the officer. She had seen the entire thing and described it exactly as it happened, with the officer 100% at fault. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her aside for a chat but she would have none of it. She told him she was long since retired and had nothing better to do than to go to court every time she was needed, to make sure the nice couple weren't falsely charged with the accident. He changed his report. My dad was never as upset with the officer as he otherwise would have been, understanding the tremendous responsibilities that law enforcement was under during that period.
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You can't prepare 12 hours out. The plywood was probably sold to coastal residents and those further north. And believe me, Home Depot didn't stock and bring in plywood like they do now. If you're willing to wait in line now, you WILL get plywood. It wasn't like that in '92. I'm thinking Chelito was very young. 
It was a very small minority that boarded up in West Kendall. I know because my husband has a window coverings business and he had work for years and years because so few boarded up their homes. We paid off our mortgage with all that work. Hurricane Andrew was very good financially for us.
Andrew Memories
