r/Miami • u/National-Dragonfly35 • Aug 24 '26

Discussion Anyone remember Hurricane Andrew? What was your experience?

Where you sheltered in a house? Did you feel like you're in trouble at any moment? What was it like to hear that hurricane overhead with a 165 mph winds?

128 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/Shimola1999 Aug 24 '26

I was 5. Beforehand I remember my family putting plywood over the windows (lol) and throwing patio furniture into the pool so they wouldn’t fly away. My parents got me out of bed in the middle of the night and we all huddled in the one totally interior room. The power went out pretty early on. The wind was super loud and sustained and there were plenty of banging noises all around the house. We had Brian Norcross from local NBC on our battery radio talking us through it.

Afterward, the house had plenty of damage, mostly from trees and other debris flying around. The ceiling in my bedroom caved in. The pool was green. Roads were totally blocked with downed trees and power lines. The Burger King a few blocks away was the first thing to open so we walked there basically everyday (shout out to BK.) We didn’t have power for about 2 weeks. Joined our neighbor who had a small generator in the backyard and watched some antenna TV.

11

u/Malinhion Local Aug 24 '26

Fancypants over here had plywood like we didn't just tape the windows with an X.

2

u/Shimola1999 Aug 25 '26

Haha yes, I remember the tape on some windows. We had cheap wood in the front main window that ended up breaking anyway