Wilma vs. Andrew

Wilma is bad, but it pales with 1992 disaster

By LISA KHOU HOMESTEAD, FLA. - To people in this storm-scarred town, the four-hour gas station lines, the sometimes fruitless waits for water, the possibility of a month without power — all the woes that Hurricane Wilma brought with her from the Gulf — are minor inconveniences, compared to 1992.
That's when Hurricane Andrew struck the southern tip of the peninsula with Category 5 fury, killing 23 in the United States, wiping out entire neighborhoods and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless.
On Thursday, residents who went through Andrew dismissed the complaints from their neighbors throughout South Florida, saying they've seen what a real hurricane can do and Wilma didn't come close.
"It's bad," pharmacy accountant Sue Smith said of Wilma's damage. "But I'll never forget Hurricane Andrew. I lost my house. I lost everything except my life."
Smith, 49, who has worked at Royal Palm pharmacy in Homestead half her life, said she remembers huddling with her small children, parents and then-husband in a closet of their home when the roof blew off, revealing a starry sky as Andrew's eye passed over.
She said it took several days for water and ice to arrive in Homestead and that looting and chaos reigned until officials regained control.
"The streets were horrible. It was like World War II. There were no signs, no nothing, we were just lost," she said.
She remembers the army rations, getting hot meals at churches and the tent cities filled with homeless residents. Her family lived in a tent in their backyard for three or four months, she said.
"That's why I don't go camping anymore," she said.

No comparison
Snapshots of Andrew's damage to the pharmacy, which came to almost $300,000, show waist-high piles of dust and crushed products swept off shelves. Pink insulation hung from the ceiling and crumbled onto aisles like confetti.
By contrast, Wilma knocked out power to the store and flooded an office. A generator and a tangle of extension cords powered the store Thursday.
A poster in the pharmacy office featuring Miami Herald front pages the week after Andrew scream headlines such as "Destruction at Dawn," "We need help," and then, five days after the storm, "Hope amid chaos ... Revved-up relief effort kicks in at last."
Three days after Andrew, headlines declared 63,000 homes destroyed, 175,000 homeless, 1 million still without power.
By almost every measure, Andrew had Wilma beat: Andrew was a Category 5, Wilma a Category 3. Andrew killed 23 in the United States, Wilma's toll so far is 14. Andrew hit in August, when the Florida weather is hot and thick with humidity. Wilma coincided with a cold front that pushed the hurricane out into the Atlantic and left South Floridians with a sweet breeze to cool them in the days without air conditioners.
"With Andrew, you had a concentrated area, very heavy damage and destruction," said Mike Stone, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "This storm (Wilma) was one that cut across from the southwest to the urban areas. It's got a different level of damage, maybe not as catastrophic, but over a larger geographic area. So you have a lot more people affected by Wilma."
Stone said Andrew was a galvanizing event that changed the way Florida viewed emergency preparedness and helped spawn an extensive system of coordination at local and federal levels.