As a Miami native, and former boat live-aboard, my personal hurricane experiences on land and at sea have included Donna, Cleo, David and others. it is appropriate to have a "healthy" respect for these low-pressure phenomena but the threat of Andrew created no fear. In consideration for the needs of my elderly parents, we packed up the kids, dog, cat and important essentials and went to Hialeah [Florida], never imagining that only the floor and a couple of walls would survive the "blow."
We lived in a "pup" tent, in the
back yard for the following four months. No electricity, bathing
in the fire hydrant, and fending off looters with shotguns while
dressed in our best "Rambo" outfits. Adolescents armed
with rifles and automatic weapons descended with each dusk. One
foolish fifteen-year-old who opened fire on a neighbor and his
insurance adjuster was shot and killed at 11AM on the Sunday following
Andrew. The police and National Guard landed a helicopter in my
yard to transport the vandal to Jackson Memorial Hospital. At
the time of the shooting, we had just returned from Sunday Mass
in the parking lot of what had been our church and I was conversing
with my sister-in-law on the phone. Seventeen minutes later the
wounded young man was her patient as she was the neuro-trauma
nurse on duty at Jackson. He died two weeks later. The experience
earned us a place on the Sally Jessie Raphael Show. In lieu of
payment, I opted to take all the remaining neighborhood residents
to the show taping, in the provided limo. While we returned to
the devastation at day's end, it was great to be a celebrity for
a day.
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