What happened in Hurricane Andrew in 1992?

The National Weather Service office in Miami calls Andrew the strongest and most devastating hurricane on record to hit southern Florida. Its eye crossed the northern tip of Elliott Key at 4:40 a.m. and came ashore at 5:05 a.m. at Fender Point in Biscayne National Park, east-northeast of Homestead Air Force Base. Its lowest pressure was 922 millibars. Andrew was upgraded to Category 5 in 2002. It is one of four hurricanes to reach the U.S. coast at Category 5 since 1900, with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys, Camille in 1969 and Michael in 2018.

Most of the damage in Florida came from wind. In southern Dade County, about 49,000 homes were destroyed and about 108,000 more were damaged. In Homestead, 1,167 of 1,176 mobile homes were destroyed. In mainland South Florida the storm caused 15 direct deaths and 28 indirect deaths. U.S. damage came to about $26 billion, the most for any U.S. natural disaster until Hurricane Katrina 13 years later.

Andrew formed from a tropical wave off West Africa, became a tropical storm on August 17 and struck Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas on August 23. After Florida it made a second landfall in south-central Louisiana on August 26 as a Category 3.

The National Hurricane Center kept its power through the storm on a generator. Afterward the Weather Service decided to move the center to a stronger building that could better withstand a Category 5 hurricane. The Weather Service office in Miami, at 11691 SW 17th Street, can be reached at 305-229-4522.

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