Hurricane Andrew

August 18: The storm
Hurricane Andrew touched the lives of thousands of people in South Florida. A tiny cul-de-sac is a microcosm of the storm's impact.

Insurance
The biggest natural disaster in U.S. history touched every homeowner in Florida when insurance companies scrambled to cover losses. Ten 10 years later, the effects can still be felt.

August 19: Building
Andrew did more than devastate South Florida: It exposed dangerous shortcomings in construction and inspection. It took 10 years, but a new statewide building code is finally in place. Some builders, however, say they already have put Andrew's lessons to work.

Protecting your home
What to do to make your house safer during a hurricane.

Interactive look at Florida's building code
(For a non-Flash version of the graphic, click here)

August 20: Whatever happened to...
Kate Hale, who with 10 words -- "Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?'' -- became an instant folk hero and prompted a complete revamping of the federal government's emergency management agency. Find out what Hale has been up to since then.

And how about the others? The TV weatherman who reassured shaky South Florida? And the shotgun-toting homeowner seen around the country? And Homestead Air Force Base?

August 24: The 1921 Storm
Tampa Bay hasn't been hit by a hurricane for 81 years. The 1921 unnamed hurricane caused millions of dollars of damage, but what would happen today if a similar storm hit the bay area?

Hurricane Animation

Related Links
2002 Official Hurricane Guide

On Aug. 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida, devastating Homestead, Florida City and parts of Miami, then continued northwest across the Gulf of Mexico to strike the Louisiana coastline.

[Times photo: Jim Stem 1992]
Aerial of a mobile home community in the Homestead area, destroyed by Hurricane Andrew.

In all, the storm caused 15 deaths directly, 25 deaths indirectly and $30-billion in property damage, making it the costliest disaster in U.S history.

Hurricane Andrew off the coast of Florida. To see a time series movie by Nathan Gasser of NASA, click here.

[Photo: NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center]

You will need the free QuickTime Player from Apple to play the video.

More than 250,000 people were left homeless; 82,000 businesses were destroyed or damaged; about 100,000 residents of south Dade County permanently left the area in Andrew's wake. Andrew also had a severe impact on the environment -- it damaged 33 percent of the coral reefs at Biscayne National Park, and 90 percent of South Dade's native pinelands, mangroves and tropical hardwood hammocks. It also created 30 years worth of debris.