Aug 24, 2009 3:18 pm US/Eastern
Al Sunshine Recalls Hurr. Andrew: 17 Years Later
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
This is not a "Time Flies" when you're having fun memory for me.
August 24th, 1992.
My family and I were digging out of our home after it was devastated by Hurricane Andrew.
We weren't alone because thousands of friends and neighbors were facing the same problems; one of the worst storms ever to the hit South Florida left a swath of destruction this community had never seen.
Whole neighborhoods were flattened. Lumber was driven through palm trees from some of the most powerful winds even recorded from a local hurricane.
It wasn't even supposed to hit Miami since it was originally forecast to "turn north" into Broward County. That's why so many of us really were not prepared for what we faced.
By hurricane standards, it was small, tightly packed storm that didn't look as bad as other storms on the maps and satellite pictures.
What we had no way of knowing; it was rapidly growing into a monster in the warm waters of the Caribbean. It turned into one of the worst, most powerful storms to ever hit Miami.
The winds started picking up after 11 p.m. and just grew worse by the hour.
We believed it wasn't even going to hit us, since all of the forecasters predicted a turn to the north over night.
But it was such a powerful little storm, it never turned.
By the time it was too late to do anything about it, we realized it was heading straight for south Miami-Dade and growing worse every minute.
We hoped the forecasters would be right and we'd be spared the full force of Andrew, but that never happened.
About 1:00 a.m., the winds really started howling and doors started shaking. By 1:30 a.m., the house was really being hit by seriously strong winds.
We barricaded ourselves in the closet and soon started hearing the doors and windows exploding all around us. We used a small mattress over our heads in case anything heavy fell from the ceiling.
But most of the roof held tight, and we were safe and dry for the early part of the storm.
But shortly after 3:00 a.m. we sarted hearing what sounded like "a freight train" overhead.
It sounded like we were suddenly on the approach of Miami International Airport and huge jetliners were landing right on top of us.
It turned out to be the series of trnadoes the storm spawned which ripped apart our neighborhood. We know now some of those winds may have approached 160 miles an hour.
In the worst of it, we started feeling rain coming into the closet from the roof, we were getting wet.
That's when the roof started coming apart.
I told my family we'd be fine and we'd come out of it OK.
But I was lying to them, in an effort to reassure them as the the howling winds and worsening conditions terrified us even worse.
I had no way of knowing whether the whole house might collapse on top of us at any moment.
Here it was August 24th, 1992 and we were still hiding in the dark during a bad storm as if history stood still and we were living in the Dark Ages.
Fortunately, the eye of the storm passed over us shortly after the worst conditions and the backside was not as bad.
My home faced the worst of the storm and kept standing. We stayed in the closet as the rest of the storm finally passed through the neighborhood.
It must have been about 6:15 or 6:30 the next morning when we finally felt safe enough to start thinking about leaving the comfort of the closet to see what happened around us.
The first sign we'd just been through a major disaster was when I tried opening the closet door.
Throughout the night, I braced myself against it so the wind wouldn't blow it open.
But now, it wouldn't open at all. I finally had to force it open to find out why.
What did I find?
The roof collapsed in our bedroom and the storm debris fell over the doorway, blocking our exit.
When we finally got out, we saw part of the roof missing and there was storm debris all over the east side of the house. It's not easy seeing everything blown apart with debris all over your bedroom.
But we survived the worst night of our lives.
We walked around the neighborhood seeing how our neighbors fared.
We all looked like "zombies" walking around expressionless, not being able to believe what we'd been through.
We survived the worst hurricane disaster in Miami's modern history.
For months after August 24th, we had no electricity and relied on the Red Cross for private relief supplies.
Florida residents from all over the state came down to distribute food and water to storm victims who lost everything.
There was an outpouring of charity and goodwill that was completely unexpected.
FEMA was non-existent for weeks. It seemed to take forever for any organized federal relief efforts to filter down food, water and clothing to us.
We made it through the storm, the sun came up the next day and life went on.
But for me and the thousands of others in South Miami-Dade who were left homeless by Hurricane Andrew, our lives were changed forever.
And it still hurts me deeply how the "Lessons of Andrew" were forgotten when "Katrina" hit New Orleans.
It's almost as if every generation needs its' own wake-up call: "It's not if the next storm hits....but when".
Drive down to the Florida Keys, just past Key Largo.
On the north side of the road there's a small monument that gets very little attention.
It honors the more than 400 residents and workers of the Florida Keys who died in the Labor Day storm of 1935.
The exact death toll was never known because of all the victims washed out to sea who were never found.
Stop and visit it the next time you're down there.
Be thankful as bad as Hurricane Andrew was 17 years ago, we still didn't come close to that loss of lives.
And never forget, it will happen again.
Hopefully we'll be much better prepared.
Up, Up, and Away With Fay
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
