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Janice Toll
USA
40 Posts |
 Posted - 02/24/2003 : 10:18:38
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According to USA Today, the storm killed 15 people in South Florida. Clean-up accidents and other incidents associated with recovery killed another 29 in Florida. That's a total of 44 deaths in Florida. I beleive that additional deaths occurred because I saw the ruins first hand, and my mind just cannot accept that only 15 were killed during the storm. I think anyone who was there will agree that you could not imagine the devastation until you saw it.
My first time to see the damage was five days after "Andrew" made landfall. I had been watching the news reports and thought I was prepared, but I was not! None of the images I had seen could even come close to what was actually there.
The Sun-Sentinel published and sold a book titled "Andrew! Savagery From the Sea" in 1992. Some of the information in the k.t. Frankovich article is also found in the Sun-Sentinel book.
Newt, if I understand, you left Homestead in 1971. I spent three months in South Dade in 1986, and could not believe the difference between then and 1992. That's only 6 years. |
Janice R. Martin-Toll |
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KileAnderson
USA
875 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2003 : 10:37:47
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| The article claims that Andrew's winds were 214mph and gusted to 350. Doesn't that hurt the author's credibility? I still don't see what the point in covering this up, or even how it could be done. Wouldn't people notice that their neighbors across the street never came back? Wouldn't schools notice many children suddenly missing? Wouldn't employers wonder what happened to their employees? I simply don't see the point of it all. |
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olderthendirt
USA
370 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2003 : 10:55:48
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| Kile this article is in there with I saw elvis on a space ship, except there may be a grain of truth behind it. the areas we are talking about are not normal burbs. These are isolated run down trailer parks in the farming areas between the city and the gladwes. Many workers would not have families with them. If there were children they would not be going to school. As the the employeers, they would keep their heads down, they were using illegal workers and probably not even paying minimum wage. That is what makes this possible. Did it happen, I do not know, but I will always wonder. |
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RJ
32 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2003 : 11:25:01
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Kile:
You had to be there to understand the magnitude of damage. You could see gouges in block walls that were caused by wind. Yes wind. As for the strength of Andrew well I stayed up all night watching the weather channel. About 3:00 AM Andrew formed Two centers of circulation (yes two eyes). If this condition would have remained through land fall the only thing we would have seen would have been a canal across south FLA. Don't bother looking for this on any tapes provided by the weather service. Shortly after the storm this time frame of the hurricane was never shown again. Remember the just completed hurricane proof weather center. It was so heavily damaged they abandoned the building. The instruments that took those high wind speed readings where destroyed by high winds. So no one really knows just how high the winds were. I do know that I have never seen before or since the type & magnitude of damage that we observed after Andrew. For those of us that where there we saw things and conditions that we hope we never see again. That is how bad it was. That is why we tend to believe stories that otherwise would seem to far fetched. Seeing is believing. |
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TomToll
USA
87 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2003 : 11:27:18
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I was at Tamiami Airport two days after Andrew hit. I had been issued a special pass by the Attorney Generals office, as I was working some aircraft claims that the State of Florida owned and the Cuban Brotherhood aircraft. I was also issued a temporary concealed weapons permit so I could carry a side arm, which I did. I rented a helocopter to scout for some of the planes, so while in the chopper, flew over to Homestead, as I had losses there too. There is very little doubt that more were killed than reported. I will not post what I saw from the air. I have seen pictures of Hiroshima after the detonation and would swear that Homestead and surrounding areas looked the same, or worse. I hope to never see devistation like that again. There were a lot of illegal and homeless people in the Homestead area and that speaks for itself. I doubt that thousands were killed, but the media and publicized count is not correct, in my opinion. Those soldiers with hot weapons were a help to me and many of the early arrival adjusters. Looting was terrible. They were stealing aircraft engines and instrumentation right and left. I know there were a number of shots fired at the Tamiami Airport. Had I not had a special pass, I would not have been allowed into the airport. Spent three days there, sleeping in the backseat of our car, no food or water for two solid days, as none was available. I saw things that I did not know human being were capable of doing, but they were doing them.
I met a lot of the Cuban Brotherhood pilots and they volunteered their planes for us to fly and scout out our planes. I had a loss on a PA38-152 Cherokee and found it 13 miles from Tamimai. It had flown itself that far and sustained only nose gear and prop damaged. It was retrieved and repaired. I have heard adjusters say they would like to see another Andrew. I can assure the young folks that they will not wish that if they ever work one like Andrew. My largest property loss was over seven and a half million and the contractor had estimated thirteen million. How many adjusters have written an estimate on a loss that filled a two foot by two foot box. It took six weeks to write that one on the antique CRS estimating program. A foot note, the loss was settled on my estimate, with much debating and grumbling from the contractor. Sure wish DDS would have been available. CRS had no macro capability.
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Tom Toll |
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Newt
USA
657 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2003 : 18:50:08
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I don't have any doubt of the fatalities there there must have been many and the only thing I can think of was someone didn't wan't to spend millions locating next of kin in Haiti, Cuba, DR and Mexico. That would have been a massive undertaking.
Joyce: I believe you, my friends and my Son-inlaw's father and mother still lived there and told me how things had changed. They have since moved out to Texas. You know the housing for the imagrants would never have withstood such a storm, the trailers that was mentioned would be a death trap. Most of those people would not have had relatives in the area and thus anyone would probably get the impression of a coverup. I think they were overwhelmed by the task and took the easy way out.
Tom: I can't understand how they would leave a high dollar plane in the path of a huricane, but they lucked out anyway. The force was with them. |
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Hurricane Andrew Cover-up?
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