Hurricane Andrew - account from inside the northern Eyewall

[beoumont]

Continuing to update my website, I have posted my account of intercepting Hurricane Andrew's northern wallcloud in SW Miami-Dade County, where we experienced wind gusts of 175 + mph.

http://www.hurricanevideo.citymax.com/andrew.html


. . . . . . .the fall of Rome

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

As a pre-teen I was there in South Dade County visting family when Andrew hit. Your update is chilling, it brings back some VERY bad memories for me. I'm actually frightened by high winds, even gusts, of hurricane force now. Only during the last time we really had high winds up here (sustained at 50 mph with several peaks gusts to 85 mph) during the hybridstorm of 2001 a decade ago, did I realise how traumatized I still was by the event. My younger family members at the time were with me, and I flipped out for a bit really scaring them. It didn't help matters that the storm damaged the roof and blew down a tree nextdoor around the same time.

[x-y-no]

Great account. I was about six miles north of you, and that was as intense an experience as I ever care to have.

[SouthDadeFish]

That's an amazing account of Hurricane Andrew. I lived about a mile and a half south of you, also in the northern eyewall. It's crazy to say that we have been through one of three recorded category five hurricanes to strike the US. And to have been through the worst part of the storm makes it all the more crazy.

What amazes me most about the storm is how not more people died. Most of the deaths occurred in the Naranja Lakes area where the homes were not built up to code. It's impressive that something can somewhat stand up to 200+ mph gusts with sustained 150+ mph winds and allow people to survive inside. Then again, reinforced concrete bolted into a cement slab is hard to knock over.

[beoumont]

Yes, "only" 19 people died during the storm itself (and another 2 dozen died during the cleanup from electrocution, severe glass cuts, large objects falling on them). Considering the intensity of the hurricane that is an amazingly low figure, as you noted.

Luckily, Andrew was a very small hurricane; and it accelerated to a 22 mph forward speed as it crossed S. Florida. The truly destructive winds lasted around 45 minutes. As the personal account of a friend (below) indicates, if the wind had continued much longer, many more would have died as the rest of their homes would have collapsed on them. The short duration of extreme winds left many, many people huddled in the one last strong-point left of their dwellings.

Below is the account of a friend / NHC employee who lived very close to where you did, near Caribbean Dr, just west of US 1.

And yes, very few concrete block homes (which most are in S. Florida) that had secure roofs, whose windows were boarded up, and were built before the relaxed building codes went into effect in the 1980s, survived quite well.
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Below is the account of Miguel and his experience during Andrew:

Well I worked 24 out of the last 36 before the storm, then I had to go and board the 2 houses I had.
I was taking even bus benches apart when hm-depot ran out of plywood.

Yes we were in the house when it finally struck!!

What a ride!! All shi_ broke loose when that baby hit.
I was looking threw the space between the plywood's and a 20-25 ft tree limb floated in front of the house then hit the kitchen window and exploded inward sending an 8" piece of glass that almost went into my head.

It got my arm and I was bleeding like mad. I just wrapped a towel around it.

I was actually on the phone with a friend that left the area before it stuck.

That's when all hell broke loose. I then flipped over and hit the roof and put a hole the size of a small car in the roof, now that storm came into the house. It looked like the wizard of OZ inside.
Every thing started to rotate inside being lifted into the air, the sliding glass door was shooting water in like a fire hydrant and every one else was in the bathroom.

The whole house fell in.
The light pole in front of the house sheared off, I had two Chevy Impala cars in front that where dancing around like they where floating.

And yes we had about a half hour, maybe more of calm before the show started again.
The house felt like it twisted on it's foundation and that's when I got scared.
But we survived and what doesn't kill you WILL make you stronger!!
My wife's hair actually turned white the next day!!

Like I said "It was the best ride I ever was in"!!!

Yours Truly,
Miguel '