Andrew’s impact still felt 26 years after its landfall
Nobody saw it coming. Weather experts predicted the 1992 hurricane season would be fairly tame. And the first named storm didn’t even gain hurricane status until Aug. 22. That meant it got this name: Andrew. It quickly gained power and speed. Two days later, at 4:52 a.m. to be precise, it came ashore 25 miles south of Miami.
Twenty-six years later, Andrew has never really left.
Its $47.8 billion worth of devastation no longer ranks it as the most costly natural disaster in American history. But it is probably the most impactful storm to ever hit the U.S.
Andrew’s legacy is felt in weather forecasting, building codes and emergency management. When people began crawling out of the debris that morning, they quickly discovered the government was nowhere near prepared.
“Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one? They keep saying we’re going to get supplies. For God’s sake, where are they?”
That was the tearful plea of Kathleen Hale, the emergency
management coordinator for Dade County. The confusion, lack of coordination and preparedness on all levels of government had all but broken her.
Part of the post-disaster disaster was due to complacency. Only two Category 5 hurricanes had ever hit the U.S., and nobody foresaw Andrew turning into a 175-mph monster.
“It’s like an air bomb went off,” Gov. Lawton Chiles said after a helicopter tour of the area. “Complete devastation.”
Almost 26,000 homes were totally destroyed, and 102,000 more were damaged. The number of homeless was 160,000, though that didn’t include hundreds of monkeys, snakes, llamas, birds, cougars and other wildlife that escaped from zoos.
Prices for food, batteries, generators and ice soared since there were no laws against gouging. Looters descended and property owners armed themselves to protect what was left of their homes.
Chiles spoke with President George Bush right after the storm and thought federal troops were on the way. It turned out a formal request was necessary, so troops didn’t arrive until four days later.
The chaos was so bad that Sen. Bob Graham asked retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, fresh off commanding the Gulf War forces, to run recovery efforts. He diplomatically declined, saying he wasn’t properly trained to do the job.
Neither was Wallace E. Stickney, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It was a politically appointed position and he had no real experience in emergency management or disaster response.
FEMA’s focus and budget had largely been devoted to surviving nuclear attacks during the Cold War. The Homestead area only looked like Hiroshima after the bomb, and FEMA’s operating manual quickly proved inadequate for that scenario.
It prompted a total overhaul of the organization. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed FEMA still had problems, but today’s disaster response apparatus far exceeds the amateur hour Andrew turned into.
Another improvement has been in forecasting. In 1992, meteorologists could project a hurricane’s path three days in advance, though the average forecast error was 270 miles.
Predictions in the days leading up to landfall had Andrew hitting the Jupiter area with 105 mph winds. That turned out to be 120 miles and 70 mph off target.
Andrew sparked extensive research and changes in hurricane forecasting. It also led to laws against gouging and an entire new set of building codes.
There were no uniform state-wide codes, which is why so many roofs blew off. Now all houses must undergo stricter inspections and be built with straps to reinforce the connection between the roof and walls.
The damage wasn’t just to structures. The runaway claims put 16 insurance companies out of business.
Today’s codes have made underwriting less risky. Post-Andrew homes have filed 60 percent fewer insurance claims and the severity of those claims is 42 percent lower, according to the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.
If your roof stayed on during Charley or Irma or you did not have to pay $20 for a bag of ice, you can probably thank Andrew.
From a disaster management standpoint, Andrew was basically a gargantuan hard-learned lesson. Florida is much better prepared in 2018 than 1992. It better be. The population has increased from 13.6 million to 20.6 million. About 98 percent of it lives in coastal counties.
The property values there are about $3.7 trillion. Nearly 3 million homes are at risk from storm surge flooding.
The good news is forecasters think this hurricane season should be relatively calm. The bad news is that’s what they said in 1992.