Hurricane Andrew...And a Dog Named Prince - LOL!!!

[southerngale]

When I think back to the terrible night when Hurricane Andrew ravaged southern Dade County, two words come to my mind -- two words that will forever be linked in my mind to that frightening time.

Those words are ``dog flatulence.''

I think of these words because my family spent that night hunkered in the home of some neighbors, who had a dog, whose name was Prince. Prince evidently had sensed that a major storm was coming, and had prepared for it by eating something really rancid, even by dog standards. This must be some kind of dog protective instinct, based on the tactical principle: ``To fight a strong wind, you must make a strong wind.''

Whatever it was that Prince ate, it festered inside him all evening, gaining potency, and when Andrew finally arrived, the extreme low pressure of the storm system somehow interacted with the high-pressure system inside Prince, who began to emit industrial quantities of a gas with an odor that could corrode steel. It was bad.

Q. How bad was it?

A. It was so bad that we seriously considered opening the windows, even though the wind was blowing somewhere around 140 miles per hour, and pieces of the house were coming off.

Fortunately, we made it through that night, thanks to a combination of luck and prayer and not breathing too much. In the morning we went outside and found that Andrew had thoroughly trashed our neighborhood. It was a depressing time for everybody, except Prince, who was feeling pretty good, which is understandable, seeing as how, in his opinion, he had personally made the storm go away.

Another Andrew smell I remember vividly is gasoline. We had no electricity, and there were trees down everywhere, so we needed generators and chain saws. We bought these from guys who magically sprang up all over the place after the storm -- like mushrooms, but with fewer teeth -- providing generators and chain saws to us storm victims out of the goodness of their hearts, asking nothing in return except large quantities of cash.

I wound up with two generators and a chain saw, and I was constantly refueling these machines, which meant that for more than a month I reeked of gasoline. This was probably good, because the gasoline fumes somewhat masked my underlying B.O., which is another aroma I associate with Andrew. We were not a good-smelling group, down there in the hurricane zone. I went weeks without a real shower. I considered bathing in the swimming pool, but it was a giant vat of warm putrid algae slime, beneath which lurked piles of sharp aluminum pool-enclosure shrapnel, tree limbs, and at least 150,000 frogs.

So I had the personal hygiene characteristics of a dumpster, and it did not help that I spent many hot and humid days sweating in my yard, clearing storm debris and using my chain saw to fend off the guys who wanted to re-roof my house. Post-Andrew Dade County was swarming with guys who had suddenly realized, only hours earlier, that their true calling was to be roofers. They were going house to house with their arsenal of professional roofing equipment, which generally consisted of a hammer and a six-pack. I did not hire these guys, but some homeowners did, and the new roofs actually held up surprisingly well, unless of course you slammed a door, in which case your roof would slide onto your lawn.

Amateur roofers were not the only scary beings roaming in the hurricane zone. There were also escaped research monkeys, or so we all heard. And there were looters. We had National Guard troops around for a while, and a curfew, which I accidentally violated one night. I had gone on an important humanitarian mission, which was to deliver a cold beer to a friend farther down in the zone, whose house was wrecked way worse than mine. There had been a lot of looting in my friend's neighborhood, and he was spending his nights in his garage, sitting on a lawn chair, holding a pistol. I stayed and talked for a while, then headed home after dark.

About two blocks from my house, I was stopped by a soldier who demanded to see some ID, then gave me a stern lecture about how I should not violate the curfew. I wholeheartedly agreed with him, because I am a law-abiding citizen. Also he was holding a weapon the size of a railroad tie.

Yes, it was an exciting time, and it remains one of the most unforgettable experiences in my life. Even now, 10 years later, when I think about it, many vivid memories come flooding back. I'm going to take a shower.


~Dave Barry
~Sun, Aug. 18, 2002

[isobar]

I love Dave Barry, and I remember reading this last year during the anniversary. This is one of his best!

[deb_in_nc]

The part about Prince had me laughing until I cried.
Oh my poor sore stomach.

Debbie