MIAMI – You never forget the sound of the howling wind on the morning of August 24, 1992, when Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida.
The category five storm brought widespread devastation to South Miami-Dade.
Some of the hardest hit communities were Homestead, Florida City, Kendall, Perrine, and Goulds.
Homestead Air Force Base was leveled.
Mobile home parks were destroyed and communities like Country Walk wiped out.
I was a reporter in Miami at the time.
I had traveled to Puerto Rico for a wedding the weekend before Hurricane Andrew hit.
I got the last plane out of San Juan the day before the storm made landfall.
While my home in Coral Gables sustained only minor damage, my family and friends lost homes in Kendall and had three feet of water in a family member’s home in Coconut Grove.
I vividly remember the National Guard troops in the streets, as large boats that had drifted with the storm surge were aground on Bayshore Drive.
As a reporter, I remember the destruction and suffering got worse the farther south we drove.
My colleague Al Sunshine survived by hiding in a closet.
He woke up to find his home in Southwest Miami-Dade destroyed.
Miami-Dade’s Emergency Operations Director Kate Hale got national attention when she called for the cavalry, soon 20,000 National Guard troops were in South Florida.
FEMA set up a tent city in Homestead.
Life was rough, and it would remain that way for a long time to come.
In the midst of the chaos, President George H. W. Bush came to South Florida promising more federal relief.
Neighbors turned out to help one another, a movement that sparked the creation of what is now Neighbors 4 Neighbors.
For those of us who lived it, the howling wind is forever a reminder that Hurricane Andrew changed us forever.
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