After Andrew, Florida Changed Its Approach to Hurricanes
“Andrew kicked our butts and we learned from it — basically in South Florida, people were running around like crazy, mostly in
circles,” said Richard Olson, the director of the international hurricane research center at Florida International University.
“How much of the county have they paved over there?” said Craig Fugate, who served as the administrator of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Obama administration and was Florida’s emergency manager.
MIAMI — Survivors of Hurricane Andrew — a Category 5 storm
that decimated cities south of Miami — talk of pre-Andrew and post-Andrew as a kind of biblical milestone.
“Whether it will make much of a difference with Irma,” he said, “will all depend on what the nature of the event is, and where it is.”
Florida, like Houston, is susceptible to excessive rainfall.
Rick Scott did not mince words: “This is a devastating hurricane,” adding that “the storm is bigger, stronger, faster than Hurricane Andrew.”
Andrew, which blew in 25 years ago, was the last Category 5 storm to hit the United States,
and it clobbered south Miami-Dade County, flattening houses and buildings.
“Andrew kick-started the professionalization of emergency management in Florida and, really, elsewhere,” Mr. Olson said.
