1926 Miami Hurricane    -    Hurricane Andrew

Andrew my memories:

We lived on the spine of Miami Beach in a big, old strong huge two story home that had withstood the 1926 Hurricane. It was built out with Dade County Pine that does very well in big hurricanes as many of the Conch homes in Key West that were built in the 1880s when my ancestors lived there on Whitehead Street are still standing. The house we would have gone too deep in Kendall or Palmetto "inland" was almost destroyed and my friend stayed in a walk-in closet with her baby while her husband sat with his wall against the bedroom door hoping it would hold. Luckily the door held but many not far away lost their roofs not just their mind.  Post Andrew was not for the the fain't of heart. During the hurricane you are going on adrenaline, after the storm the adrenaline is gone and so is part of your home and your belongs and your mind and all sense of normal was gone with the hurricane, howling wind.

While I had basic supplies for your basic hurricane hidden away ..... with a Cat 5 on the way weren't gonna last long. Shopping was an adventure I never want to do again. I did have lots of batteries hidden and used them all for a little mini TV that worked on batteries and radios and well you know the drill everything you need to be stuck in house that survived okay but has no power, no water and yet miraculously one of our phone lines remained and everyone in mid Beach who was there (many) used that phone to let people know they were okay.  The Mary Pickford Estate nearby on Pine Tree was trashed and took out power and phone lines when all the huge ficus trees went down and it took longer to get power back than on other streets. People stood outside in the rain days later and took showers to stay clean and many went to the beach to swim and feel the breeze as the heat was unbearable in late August with no AC no fans and no water ...not using punctuation the hurricane would have taken that too! Note Wilma was kind she came with a cold front and the air was more bearable than by Andrew.

I went with my best friend and fellow storm chaser to the beach neaby. My 5 year old "big girl" insisted on coming and as she would not get out of the car and we were in rush she came with us. We passed people walking from the hotels to the Dolphin Park and Ride lots to be evacuated carrying their belongings and pillows ....totally surreal. We went to the beach, parked by 40th street walked out onto the Boardwalk and felt the full power of the wind, watched the wild waves you rarely see in Miami ... my daughter pretended she was a plane and ran in circles as the "breeze" sounded like Jet Engines. We stayed, we talked, we took time to enjoy the wild moments as we did chase storms regularly tho not big hurricanes like Andrew.  We went home, I gave her a better battery radio than she had with enough batteries and went in the house to prepare.  It was the craziest of times. The night before the storm a little while later, my ex-husband and I took a long drive down to South Beach and back taking one last look. We really didn't expect it to be there after the storm in any normal way. Everything was boarded up, very few cars on the road. A lone "bag lady" a thing back then on Miami Beach pushed her cart near a gas station, I prayed for her often during the storm. I'll never forget the way Miami Beach looked the night before, in the dark, the wind blowing a steady announcement that more was on the way later that night. And, we went home, locked up everything and double checked everything one last time and hunkered down. 

We set up matresses upstairs near the nursery in a huge hallway and set up radios and batteries and supplies nearby and hunkered down listening to Bryan Norcross. Occasionally we watched some TV, then turned it off to save batteries and went back to the radio where Bryan talked all night, talking everyone through the night of Andrew. No one was sure where the eye was coming ashore and when the NHC lost the radar dish on their roof it was all guess work. It seemed the storm dipped just enough South that Miami Beach and Miami downtown was spared the worst of it but really you have no idea how bad Miami Beach was hit in some areas. Streets not passable, all traiic lights were blown away, no stop signs, sand on Collins Avenue and huge ficus and bayans down on houses, roads and often most got lucky somehow. My friend on Pine Tree had a roof from a home behind the take flight and land in their pool. Stories that didn't make the news but really happened on Miami Beach.

At the height of Andrew during the strongest, screaming squalls you could hear the surf on Miami Beach and that was wild, memorable. Awesome and not as terrifying as it sounds as I knew my friends in Kendall and Palmetto were losing parts of their home and beyond that in Hometead  as all hell broke loose. 

But nothing was normal for a long, long time and that may seem trivial but it was terrible. Power was out about two weeks, we had use of a friends cottage that had power due to generators for a few days but it was claustrophobic and exhausting and I went home around the corner with my 5 year old lol who obviously went anywhere I went and after spending the day there we saw trucks and heard people cheering outside and saw power companies from far away were turning the power back on our block. That was way easier than my friends had it down South in Palmetto. 

During Irma my kids drove up and stayed with us in Raleigh, well some did. My daughter in law who was about 5  years old during Andrew took her little 1 year old daughter and flew out to her sister in law in NY. She had gone through Andrew in a bathtub in Palmetto with a mattress over her head and her mother's head while her tall, strong father did what it seems every father did they he stood or sat and held the bathroom door tight even though the roof was coming off in bits and pieces. She does not stay in town when a Hurricane comes, she's on a plane out anywhere but there. Her two year old son and my son drove up to Raleigh and we had a good time, they packed up with gas after buying red gas cans at Lowes Hardware to take back for the ride as many gas stations along the way were out of gas. Their home in the Grove was good. It could have been way worse. So my Irma memories are a family reunion in Raleigh far from Irma. We did drive down about a week or two later and I took a lot damage photos and spent time at St. Marys where the dock was destroyed despite Irma going inland to Georgia the WAVES up the shore, up the coast lelt looding in areas in Jax and in nearby beautiul St Marys.

This is Hurricane Memories tonight.....

2004 and 2005 taught me crazy lessons and really it's way better to chase a hurricane with trained storm chasers than to have a hurricane chase you to your house. After a hurricane chase it's really nice to have a home to go back to........

We will know more tomorrow about Invest 96L .... and there are more waves behind it as we move towards September and MJO is supposedly on the way into the Atlantic so don't let your guard down. 1992 was a beastly hot summer with little rain let alone hurricanes until the A storm in late August. No one remembers any other names from 1992 only Andrrew. This year has been pretty beastly hot in Miami everyone's complaining. Not saying anything more......