32 years ago, Hurricane Andrew slammed into Homestead, FL

[crimsonaudio]

Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida as a devastating Category 5 storm on this day in 1992. The hurricane killed 65 people, destroyed thousands of homes, and caused billions of dollars in damage. I lived in Orlando at the time and remember my dadgoing down with a group to hand out water and help folks. He came back pretty shaken, I recall him saying it looked like photos of Hiroshima.

 

[Padreruf]

Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida as a devastating Category 5 storm on this day in 1992. The hurricane killed 65 people, destroyed thousands of homes, and caused billions of dollars in damage. I lived in Orlando at the time and remember my dadgoing down with a group to hand out water and help folks. He came back pretty shaken, I recall him saying it looked like photos of Hiroshima.

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Andrew was amazing...interesting fact: the houses in the area built by Habitat for Humanity suffered less damage...probably due to the fact that volunteers put in at least 2x the number of nails required. They also used more tie down straps.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Andrew is the reason why I swore off ever living on the coast. Inland FL is fine, but I refuse to live where a cat5 like that can wipe entire towns off the map.

 

[Bazza]

Remember it well. I was living in the Fort Myers area at the time.

I'm on the coast but my home was built in the early 60's. It's block, 1 story, and built like a bunker.

Not saying it couldn't sustain damage but push come to shove, my property not my home, is really where the value is, due to my location.

 

[jabcmb]

The damage to certain areas and landscape was very disorienting, even for a lot of locals, due to street signs and trafic signs being gone (and physical landmarks). I was there about 30 days. If only we had Map apps back then. Tent cities went up sooner than most expected, and mobile clinics. DOD contributed a lot to that effort among other organizations. A lot of suffering, a lot of good people trying to help in some way.