In Remembrance of Andrew

Hurricane Andrew was one of the reasons I kept a land line until two years ago. Most of the people who live in S. Florida now came after Andrew and take hurricanes for a joke and not the powerhouse of destruction they truly are. If we get one that only does minimal damage, people post stupid memes not realizing how lucky they were that that's all that occurred. I've had students stupidly wishing to see a tornado or be inside of a hurricane. Before Andrew, that had never been my wish. After Andrew, that would be my nightmare.

As Brian Norcross stated, the mattress did save lives. We were hunkered down in the bathroom (the only room w/o a window), seven of us, when the tiled walls started rattling. That mattress went over our heads so quickly, it would have been comical had the situation not been so scary. The winds came in through slung-open doors and broken windows, whipping through the house and, had that storm lasted an hour more, that house wouldn't have been left standing.

Brian Norcross became someone we trusted. Many of us were sad to see him leave channel four. But
August 24, 1992 did a lot more than give us a weatherman to look up to; it gave us survivors a healthy dose of respect and fear for hurricanes.