Hurricane Andrew 1992: A 212 mph Gust, Escaped Pythons and Stapled Roofs

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Hurricane Andrew began as a tropical wave off Africa on August 14, 1992, and nearly died when wind shear left Hurricane Hunter crews unable to find a center and its pressure rose to 1015 millibars. When the shear lifted and a high pressure ridge steered it west, the compact storm, with tropical storm winds reaching only about 90 miles from its center, dropped 47 millibars in 24 hours to 922 millibars with 175 mph winds. It struck Eleuthera in the Bahamas on August 23, where the sea at a village called The Current receded three miles before a 24 foot surge. Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham had been in office four days, yet 58 shelters and early warnings held the Bahamian death toll to four.

Andrew reintensified over the Gulf Stream and hit Elliott Key and Homestead on August 24 as a Category 5, destroying 63,000 homes in Dade County, leaving 175,000 people homeless and wrecking Homestead Air Force Base. Instruments at the National Hurricane Center failed, and a private anemometer in Perrine recorded a 212 mph gust that Virginia Tech wind tunnel tests later revised to 177 mph. The fast, dry storm crossed into the Gulf of Mexico, damaged 241 oil and gas facilities, made a final landfall near Morgan City, Louisiana, and spawned 26 tornadoes. A House report called FEMA a turkey farm, and Governor Lawton Chiles took five days to request federal aid under the Stafford Act.

• Winds destroyed an exotic pet breeding facility near the Everglades and released Burmese pythons whose descendants now number in the tens of thousands.
• Churned anoxic sludge in the Atchafalaya Basin and Bayou Lafourche suffocated 187 million freshwater fish.
• An F3 tornado in LaPlace, Louisiana, stayed on the ground for ten minutes, killing two people.
• Haag Engineering found roof tiles glued to felt paper and shingles stapled perpendicular to the long axis, which led Florida to adopt far stricter building codes.
• University of Miami psychiatrists estimated that up to 90 percent of residents in the hardest hit zones showed some PTSD symptoms.