A-Z Challenge – Atlantic Hurricanes: A

Today begins the Blogging From A-Z Challenge and my theme, Atlantic Hurricanes. You can read more about my theme, here, and if you are a crafter, you can check out the blanket that I am crocheting that coincides with this challenge, here.

I’ve lived my entire life in the South, so I’ve been through my fair share of tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes. For this challenge, I’m looking back on the storms that have impacted my life and some of the bigger more unforgettable storms.

A: Hurricane Andrew

Amazingly enough, we start off the challenge with the storm that has made the most impact on my life. This is the only category 5 hurricane that I have ever been through, and hopefully the only one.

My Hurricane Andrew story

It was the summer of 1992 in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I had just turned 18 and had recently graduated high school. I was starting college in the spring semester, which started in January, so I stayed home to make some extra money and get ready for the big move to Gainesville in a few months. It is amazing how things work out. I was the only one of my friends who stayed behind instead of starting college in the fall. I’m also the only one of my friends who went through Hurricane Andrew. Lucky me!

August 21: The Calm Before the Storm

These days I might not remember why I walked into the kitchen, but I can remember a lot from August 21-24, 1992. On the night of August 21, 1992, I was babysitting my cousins, trying to make that extra money for college. I had the TV show The Commish on. In the middle of the show, the local TV station broke in with news that Tropical Storm Andrew was getting close to becoming a hurricane. When I got home, I told my mom about it and we decided to take a trip to Home Depot in the morning to get some boards and other supplies.

August 22: Preparing for a Hurricane

Early in the morning of August 22, Andrew became a hurricane and all hell broke loose in South Florida. By the time we got to Home Depot, the line was out the door and wrapped around the building. It was just me and my mom. And to add insult to injury, my mom wasn’t feeling well. When she finally got to the doctor after the storm we discovered she had bronchitis, laryngitis, and walking pneumonia. After standing in line for over an hour, we somehow found some of their last boards for the windows and other supplies when some guy came along and tried to take our boards out of our cart. I wasn’t having it! I grabbed those boards out of his hand and whipped the cart around and blocked the supplies the rest of the time we were in line.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting the food pulled together and prepping the inside and outside of the house for the storm. It was back in the early ’90s, so we still believed that putting tape on the windows was going to help. I remember working feverishly with my sister to get Xs of tape on all of the windows and sliding glass doors.

August 23: A Possible Direct Hit

I can’t remember exactly when we figured out that Andrew was coming straight for us, but I’m pretty sure it was either late August 22 or early August 23. At this point, South Florida was under a State of Emergency. The governor had lifted the tolls on the roads and had all of the southbound traffic stopped so that all the lanes of the highways were only going north. Dade and Broward counties were under evacuation orders. Since I lived just outside of Fort Lauderdale, my dad, who lived on the beach, and my grandmother, who lived on the Intercoastal, were issued mandatory evacuation orders. My grandmother told me a few years later that the police knocked on her door while she was packing to come and stay with us. The officers had a waiver for anyone who decided to stay. It said the homeowner was advised to evacuate but chose to stay. They were told that no help would be available until after the storm and it was safe for the responders to venture out.

August 23 (night) – August 24 (morning): Hurricane Andrew Makes Landfall

Around this time, the meteorologists had a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew somewhere between Palm Beach and Miami. My house was right in the middle.

Once we barricaded ourselves inside of the house, it was just a waiting game. It was me, my sister, my grandmother, and my mom, who stayed in bed most of the time. I vividly remember my grandmother making my sister and me sweet rolls and watching a little battery-operated TV since our electricity went out pretty early on into the storm.

We didn’t start to feel the storm until the sun went down, which is the worst time to have a hurricane because you can’t see anything you just hear the howling of the wind. The wind came in waves and the rain blew sideways so forcefully that it came through the screws in our windows. This went on for hours. As Andrew headed toward Florida, it was supposed to hit the Fort Lauderdale area head-on, which would have put the eye directly over me. At the last minute, it jogged a bit to the south and hit Homestead.

My childhood home sustained some damage, but nothing too severe even though we had sustained winds of over 80 mph and wind gusts of over 100 mph. We also had a confirmed tornado that went down my street and hit every other house. It took our mailbox two streets down and knocked my neighbor’s tree through their roof. We were all very fortunate that our houses survived and no one I knew was hurt in the storm. I will say, that the storm did give me a bit of storm PTSD. Every time it gets a little too windy outside I tense up. I attribute that to Hurricane Andrew.