FLIRTING WITH ANDREW

This is about our experiences in the hurricane that hit south Florida on Monday, August 24, 1992.

We had plenty of warning about hurricane Andrew as we had kept tuned to the T.V. weather channel and had watched it churn its way across the Atlantic toward the mainland for several days.  It seemed to be headed north of Miami.  Being old-timers in the Keys, fifteen year residents, and visitors on and off for forty years, we knew the possible dangers.  We were stocked with food, lanterns, water, and had decided to ride it out in our house if it came our way, despite the county wide mandatory evacuation. 

When I was taking my usual morning bicycle ride on Sunday morning, the 23rd, I saw Ocean Reef security cars driving slowly by the buildings, announcing through loudspeakers, advising all residents to evacuate.  At that point we began to take the warnings more seriously.  Hurricanes often cause tidal surges of 18 feet or more and we considered that possibility for a while.  Since our home is only 12 feet above the water, it seemed prudent to leave, although we still thought the storm was going north of us.  We decided to close up and go to Homestead, which is on the mainland and on higher ground, far south of where we thought the hurricane was headed.  I called the Days Inn in Homestead and made a reservation for Sunday night while Jim went around the house pulling the storm shutters.  I called the security office to see if they could send someone to help him but they said no as my call was the last one they were taking before leaving.  They said the fire department was leaving too.  This information made things seem more serious than we realized.  I threw some clothes and a bottle of rum in a bag and set out water and food for our two cats, which we left behind as advised by the newspaper, which had been issuing hurricane advice for days.

Thousands of people were being evacuated from the Florida Keys to hurricane shelters at Florida International University and other sites on the mainland.  This flow of traffic had just about abated when we got to Homestead Sunday afternoon.  What little traffic we saw was headed north.  As we drove into town, we didn’t realize we were headed into the eye of the storm.  We stopped in the Hampton Inn, a newer motel, to see if we could get a room there but were told they were closing down and not taking any guests.  We then went on to the Days Inn, where we registered and inquired about the motel restaurant, as we hadn’t had lunch.  Closed we were told, like all the other restaurants in town.  The girl at the desk advised us to go to Publix supermarket and get a bag of food to keep in our room.  We went the few blocks to the store and found it very busy.  Some of the shelves were empty but we gathered together some fruit, muffins, and two large deli sandwiches.  The store personnel seemed nervous and unhappy at having to work while most everyone else was home boarding up their houses and preparing for the storm.  It was about three when we got back to the motel.  We could see people nailing plywood to their stores along route 1.

There was a pool party going on at the motel.  No one seemed worried as we passed them on the way to our room, which faced an inside courtyard.  We mixed a rum drink about five o’clock and strolled around the grounds and chatted with people in the office.  Back in the room we watched the progress of the storm on T.V. while we ate our sandwiches.  We got a little uneasy when we saw that the hurricane was going to hit the mainland just above Miami.  Luckily for our peace of mind, we didn’t realize we were directly in the path of Andrew.  We went to sleep at our usual time, about 11 P.M.  Around three A.M., I was awakened by increasingly loud winds and the bang of falling roof tiles.  The power was out and by the light of my flashlight I could see that our window was broken and leaning into our room, held back only by the tape the management had put on all the windows.  I woke up Jim and said we had better get dressed and be prepared for what might happen next.  After getting our clothes on, we went into the bathroom with pillows for protection and turned on the battery radio for information but it was very difficult to hear anything with the static on the radio and the noise outdoors.  About four o’clock we heard the manager pounding on the door and yelling “everyone into the lounge!”.  We gathered our flashlights, radio, and jackets, locked the door and went out into the storm.  Other guests were coming out of their rooms and we all walked along under the overhang which protected us from falling debris.  The motel is made up of three or four large buildings with connecting courtyards.  We had to traverse several of these to get to the lounge.  The wind was getting stronger and debris was flying through the air but we were safe staying close to the buildings.  Halfway there Jim said he was going to check the car and I yelled. “No, come along with the rest of us!”.  When we filed into the lounge, he was nowhere to be seen.  I told the manager I couldn’t find my husband and that he had gone to look at the car.  The manager got upset and went to look for him.  Fortunately Jim had changed his mind and turned up in a few minutes.

Fifty or sixty people gathered in the bar and lounge, a large room of concrete construction.  There were a few dogs on leashes and quite a few children.  Some people had decided to stay in their rooms.  We sat there with only the light of lanterns and flashlights.  A few radios were tuned to channel 7, the designated hurricane station.  The broadcast was hard to understand as the announcers were under so much stress plus the noise of the storm.  The Miami hurricane center had blown away some time in the night.  The wind got louder and louder.  Suddenly we heard a deafening roar like a freight train going overhead.  I have no idea how long we endured this noise.  We were in a state of shock.  No one moved.  When it finally passed, people began to talk quietly and move around the room, which had suffered no damage.  Children didn’t cry, dogs didn’t bark.  The winds started to die down and while we waited for daylight, Jim and I sat on barstools and tried to catch a few winks with our folded arms on the bar.  When daylight came, we started to move about to look out the small window which miraculously had not broken.  The sun was shining on such devastation that everyone was shocked and speechless.  The patios of the Days Inn were littered with broken roof tiles, broken glass, uprooted trees and bushes, and most of the aluminum roof of the bowling alley in the next block.  We picked our way carefully through the wreckage to our room, which we found comparatively undamaged.  The broken window still sagged on the strips of tape and the air conditioner unit had slid a foot into the room.  Everything else was all right except the bathroom where water was beginning to seep through the ceiling.  We ate some food from our bag and, being really exhausted from all the excitement, we slept for several hours.  When we got up, people were moving around in the rubble trying to figure out what to do.  The sun was shining and there was no wind.  Some were taking pictures and some were trying to dig out their cars.  In the room next to us was an English family.  The mother was snapping pictures of everything and saying that no one would believe it when they got home.  Her husband was trying to find out if their rental car would run.  All the cars in the parking lot were damaged.  They were dented, windows broken, large strips of aluminum rested on their tops.  We went to check our car and found the back and side windows gone, the windshield cracked from side to side.  The interior was all wet and the glove compartment was full of water.  We also had a flat tire.  Jim asked a man standing nearby if he would change our tire and he said “sure”.  After that was done, we crunched our way over the rubble to route 1.  We recognized nothing as we drove slowly down the highway.  Familiar landmarks were gone.  The shells of Pizza Hut and McDonalds still stood, gutted.  A few cars drove slowly on the road.  Traffic lights were down and live wires snaked across the pavement.  Everyone was moving very cautiously, with dazed expressions.  As we headed south we found a road block just before Card Sound road and there were already quite a few cars lined up.  The police checked our I.D.s as only Keys residents were allowed through.  We were told Card Sound road was closed and to take 905 to Ocean Reef.  At that time we didn’t know where the worst damage was and thought it might be south of us.  It turned out to be from Florida City north to south Miami.  The Keys had some wind damage but that was all.  The police at the roadblock told us that Ocean Reef had minimal damage.  Not true, we found out when we drove through the gate.  The damage was widespread.  Most buildings had shingles off causing water to come into the buildings.  Patio screens were down and landscaping torn up.  There was a great loss of trees.  There were a few security men at the gate and some National Guard personnel who stayed on the reef for a week, patrolling the streets.  We drove carefully through the rubble and fallen trees to our house.  The interior was untouched but the outside was a different story.  Our steel shutters were closed on the house but the outdoor furniture was piled high in the corner of the terrace.  The patio screen and aluminum frame were in the swimming pool along with a 30 feet tree that had been blown across the channel, which is about a hundred yards wide.  Our two cats were safe but the door to their room had blown open and the food and cat litter had been tossed all around.  They were busy investigating the debris on our terrace when we got there.  The sapodilla tree at our dock was broken in the middle.  It had stood about 25 feet tall.  Our huge ficus tree on the east side of the house was uprooted and the stone wall which edged its space was destroyed.  The trees in front of the house and the black olive tree on the west side of the house were badly broken but will survive if trimmed.

There was a 35 foot catamaran hooked on one of the pilings at our dock.  It had broken loose from its mooring up the channel from us, hit our dock and sank it.  All 40 feet of it were gone with only two pilings sticking out of the water to show where it had been.  We were overwhelmed by the destruction but the adrenalin was flowing and we got busy cleaning up.  A few tree service trucks were cruising through Ocean Reef looking for work and, being among the first residents to return after the storm, we were able to get help from Tropics North and other services.  Mark Dixon and his wife Robyn came to help clean up.  Our water was on and off for the first few days but was steady after that.  We had no power or telephone.  It wasn’t until Wednesday that we could find a working phone at the Circle K convenience store in Key Largo to call our family and say we were all right.

The power was off for about ten days so we hauled out a camp stove we’d had for twelve years and never used.  Also we rounded up our lanterns and candles.  The days were very hot, about 90 degrees, and it was very difficult to cope with all the things that had to be done.  At night it cooled down to 80 and we sat in the living room fanning ourselves, listening to recorded books by candlelight.  We learned something about silence during those long hot nights.  The neighborhood was almost empty, not even the sound of a refrigerator running broke the silence.  Sometimes when the wind was right, a distant generator could be heard.  Our phone wasn’t fixed for weeks so we had to use the phone in our neighbors’ houses on both sides.  Finally we flagged down a Southern Bell truck and they found the problem.

For about five days we drove our storm-battered car while desperately trying to find a rental car.  Francke LeGros offered her Jaguar which she keeps at her Ocean Reef home, so we drove her car for a week.  Finally, Jim located a car at Dollar Rental in Key Largo.  They were good enough to deliver it to our home.  Traffic was terrible in the weeks after the hurricane.  The roads were crowded with trucks, front-end loaders, army vehicles and Hummers.  There was a lot of tension in the air and drivers were going fast.

We were able to get workmen to put up a temporary screen on the upper part of our terrace so we could open our doors and get some breeze until the power came back on.  We got used to cold showers (not very cold) and cold coffee (not bad).  We often thought of the pioneers in Florida and how they must have suffered heat and mosquitos.  Ice was very hard to find.  The Publix supermarket had some but there were limits of two bags only to a customer.  Mark bought some for us when he could.

AFTERMATH  –  November 24, 1992
Three months later the work goes on here at Ocean Reef.  Our roof has been replaced as well as our screen enclosure.  Some homeowners are still waiting.  The only really big thing for us now is planting and replacing our landscaping.  Many of the condo units here are being repaired.  Others are a total loss.  The work hours for the Reef are 7 A.M. to 6 P.M., so there is a constant buzz of activity in the residential section as well as in the hotel area.  Our boat is still in storage at Purdue-Dean and is all right.  We have decided not to build a new dock but to use bumpers on the sea wall to tie it up.  Our troubles here are nothing compared to the tragic losses in Florida City and north.  Telephone service is still out in some areas, homes blown away.  Homestead is like a ghost city with only a few businesses open.  It will take years to rebuild.  Many people have left the area.

[signed]  Betty Crall