In 1992 on August 24, Hurricane Andrew made landfall just south of downtown Miami as a major hurricane, causing incredible devastation across the south Florida peninsula before it emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on its way to a second landfall in Louisiana. My husband and I visited Miami ten months after Andrew hit and were amazed at the amount of devastation that was still visible those many months later. Whole subdivisions were just closed down with houses abandoned. His aunt’s house on Key Biscayne, normally a bright white, was colored green by the wind-blasted vegetation which repainted the house. Unlike most hurricanes whose major source of damage is the storm surge, Andrew’s biggest impacts came from strong winds which buffeted inland areas.
Andrew occurred in an El Niño year, which explains why an “A” storm (first one of the year) occurred in late August. It was not an active hurricane season that year, but just one storm caused a billion dollar disaster, so it is important to be ready at the beginning of each hurricane season because you don’t know if this is going to be the year that a devastating storm hits you. Even if you are inland, you can feel the effects from wind or heavy rains.
You can read the National Hurricane Center report on Andrew at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1992andrew.html. There are also many retrospectives on Miami and national media today.
