Floridians Celebrate Renewal, Year After Andrew

A year after Hurricane Andrew brought devastation in the blackness before dawn, Gov. Lawton Chiles marked the anniversary at a sunrise service Tuesday celebrating survival and renewal.

Chiles said the despair that gripped South Florida after Andrew’s devastation is finally lifting.

“In the last few months, there is a totally different look,” Chiles told a crowd of several hundred at Homestead’s refurbished sports complex. “There’s a totally different feel. Homestead is never going to be the same, South Florida is never going to be the same, but we are going to make them better.”

The hurricane left 41 people dead and caused $30 billion in damage in the state.

In Florida City, in an effort to help symbolize the healing that is taking place, a lumber company and volunteers worked Tuesday on “Miracle House,” to be finished in 24 hours.

A few blocks away, Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay and Florida City officials broke ground for a new civic center and police station.

Farther north, the temporary camp at St. Ann’s mission in Naranja has vanished, with weeds growing in fields where tents once housed hurricane refugees.

The nation learned some lessons about disaster preparedness and post-storm relief efforts from Andrew. Many people recall Dade County’s emergency director Kathleen Hale and her televised plea for help: “Where the hell is the cavalry?”

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, visited the area Tuesday. He credited Hale’s plea, and the agency’s subsequent experience with Andrew, for helping to ease the plight of victims of this summer’s flooding in the Midwest.

In Dade County, the cavalry has come and gone, but recovery is far from complete, Hale said.

“It’s going to take housing being repaired, it’s going to take the economy to come back, it’s going to take jobs,” Hale said. “It’s going to take time for all of this to heal and to be back in place again. But it’s never going to be ‘normal’ unless we’re hurricane-prepared.”