Andrew 25 years ago

[rsmith]

You just never know. No one expected Andrew to be the strength or tract it took until too late. I flew the first private relief flight into Homestead and the destruction was comparable to a nuclear blast. Never let your guard down.

[captddis]

A 52c AND A 46 rode it out in Key West which had little damage.

However going through Homestead was something I will never forget!

A friend lived in Homestead and their house dissolves. The only thing that saved them was the the debres on top of them. scarry stuff.

[Avenger]

My In-laws retired and moved in to a development near West Palm Beach 25 years ago yesterday. Nice welcome to the neighborhood.

[Fanfare]

Twenty five years ago Dudley and I were volunteer wardens at Exuma Park, Warderick Wells Island, Bahamas. We were asked to be there by August 1 or so to get the park shipshape before the opening of spiny lobster season. My job was to get the park's boats working. Dudley went out with Park Ranger Peggy Hall to collect the empty shells shed by the resident lobsters since these were a tipoff to where the critters lived making easy pickings for poachers.

All was going well until my generator began leaking cooling water. I went to look for my spare pump only to find it had vibrated under my battery shelf where acid had damaged it. We had to leave early and go to Nassau to get new bearings pressed into each pump. But once this was done we were at loose ends. Amazingly, after being aboard all summer EVERYTHING on the boat was working! (This almost never happens!) The weather had been great and we discussed taking Fanfare to Spanish Wells and storing her until October when we could come back and make a leisurely cruise back to Florida. For absolutely no reason we decided to go back to Ft. Lauderdale.

Hurricane Andrew had been going nearly due north and offshore until it reached approximately the latitude of the south end of Eleuthera Island. Then it quickly turned west. The eye passed directly over Spanish Wells, decimating the town. The marina was destroyed, all of the boats were lost. The town was without power for weeks--not only were the wires down, the telephone poles were gone, snapped off at the bases. Fanfare would surely have been lost. Cruising World magazine had a great article on sailboats anchored nearby at Royal Island. The winds, measured at 170 (don't know whether knots or mph) translated the normal slow motions of boats at anchor into violent snaps, lunges from one side to the other. Cabinets flew open, heavy cans flew back and forth through the air with great force, the owners forced to cover themselves with their mattresses for protection. Truly frightening.

Meanwhile Fanfare lay quietly at her home dock, so many mooring lines securing her that she looked like some mad spider had attacked. The storm landed at Homestead, about 40 miles south, wreaking havoc. Fanfare came through her 80 mph winds with no damage. I think Exuma Park missed the worst of Andrew being farther south, before the storm fully turned. Maybe we would have been OK there on our mooring, who knows. In hindsight, however, I would not advise staying on board in the face of such a storm. You can always get another boat. Go ashore.

Proving once again that it is better to be lucky than smart.