PART ONE
On Sunday morning, August 23rd, 1992, the warnings in South Florida were frantic. Hurricane Andrew was strengthening rapidly some 425 miles east of Miami, Florida. Moving west of 16 mph, Andrew was on schedule to make landfall on the South Florida coast in just over 24 hours. Top winds were 120 mph and the central pressure had fallen to 951 millibars.
On Friday, the official forecast did not anticipate the storm reaching the coast before Tuesday at the earliest. By Saturday morning, it was intensifying faster than expected and accelerating. Concerned over the developing situation, forecasters hoisted hurricane watches for part of the Florida coast that afternoon.
At 8 a.m. EDT on Sunday, hurricane warning flags were quickly raised on the Florida coast. There was not much time for action. Directly in the path of the powerful storm, the National Hurricane Center packed a backup crew and sent them to Washington, D.C., in case communications were lost.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Andrew was upgraded to a Category Four hurricane with top winds of 135 mph after the recon plane reported a central pressure of 930 millibars. Just three hours later, the minimum pressure was down to 922 millibars and the winds were up to 150 mph.
That afternoon, Hurricane Andrew brought a 23 foot storm surge to Current Island in the Bahamas. Damage in the islands amounted to $250 million. Then as the night wore on, the small, distinct eye of Andrew was less than 100 miles from Miami, drawing a bead on South Florida.
PART TWO
Hurricane Andrew made landfall in southern Dade County Florida near Homestead around 5am on the morning of Monday, August 24, 1992. The storm had the fourth lowest pressure ever recorded in a landfalling United States Hurricane (922 mb). Only Camille (1969), the Labor Day Storm (1935) and Katrina (2005) were stronger.
Originally classified as a Category 4 storm, Andrew was upgraded to a Category 5 storm ten years later based on new research data. Before Andrew, South Florida had been spared from a major hurricane for some twenty seven years.
Andrew ranks first in all time damage, with losses in Florida totaling at least $25 billion. Some estimates range as high as $40 billion. The storm was intensifying at landfall, as evidenced by final reconnaissance report of a central pressure of 930 millibars followed by the land observation of 922 millibars. Intensifying tropical cyclones are generally accompanied by increasing winds. The storm had maximum winds at landfall of 145 mph with gusts to 175 mph.
The storm surge peaked at 16.9 feet in Biscayne Bay, which was a record for South Florida. Homestead AFB was wiped off the face of the earth. Up to 250,000 people were left at least temporarily homeless in south Florida. Fifteen deaths in Florida were directly attributable to Andrew, with another twenty nine as an indirect result of the storm. 63,000 homes were destroyed. 110,000 homes were damaged.
As bad as Hurricane Andrew was, it could have been worse. If the hurricane had struck land twenty miles further north where over a third of the population ignored calls to evacuate, the death toll would have been substantially higher and the damage total even more immense.
Andrew would cross the Florida peninsula during the day and emerge in the Gulf of Mexico heading for Louisiana.
