When Hurricane Andrew roared across South Florida 20 years ago this August, it flattened homes, uprooted trees and destroyed surburban blocks for miles around.
One of just three Category 5 storms to strike the U.S. in the past 160 years, Andrew left at least 15 people dead and more than 150,000 homeless, its 165 mph winds causing more than $25 billion in damage.
Some of the most poignant images of the aftermath were those of children: Standing in food lines, idling in sweltering heat beside damaged homes, limp in the arms of rescue workers. Once back at school, some kids hid under desks, apprehensive whenever thunderstorms approached. Others spoke of nightmares.
"Disaster really exposes all our childhood beliefs," said Jon Shaw, a psychiatrist at the University of Miami who studied children in the aftermath of the storm. "To discover that people are unable to provide for you, protect you, is an increased understanding of how the world works."
As another hurricane season opens this month, what was one of the worst U.S. natural disasters has become a fading memory. For the children who lived through Andrew, though, each new threat still brings a vivid recollection. For some, the storm even shaped the adults they became.
In Laura Tsiltlidze's work at a large insurance company, disasters are measured in numbers: Claims filed, dollars lost, payments made. But it's hard for Tsiltlidze, 27, to look at the figures coldly. She thinks of the people, and she's reminded of the storm that ripped away rooftops, knocked out power and shook the walls of her family's home.
Tsiltlidze, her parents and three siblings survived Hurricane Andrew crunched together in a bathroom with no windows. She remembers the wind howling as the storm gained in fury before dawn on Aug. 24, 1992.
Then as the storm abated, she and her family walked outside and entered a changed world: Tiles, roofing, tar, leaves and garbage littered the ground.
In all, authorities estimated that Andrew destroyed more than 25,000 homes and damaged more than 100,000 others.
Several rooms, including her own, had roof damage, so the Tsiltlidzes spent weeks sleeping on the living-room floor. There was no electricity for more than a month and running water was scarce. They'd take sponge baths and bathe in a nearby lake.
For a child, the evening cookouts and nights spent in sleeping bags almost seemed fun. As an adult, she sees it differently. Hurricanes aren't just a burst of orange, green and yellow swirling on a radar screen, or a set of numbers totaling up the destruction.
The Diaz family lived in a one-story, beige-colored house with a white-tile roof in Cutler Ridge, a middle-class neighborhood along Biscayne Bay, just south of Miami. As the hurricane approached, Cutler Ridge was evacuated. The Diazes left nearly everything behind: their dogs, family photographs, books, clothing, the birthday presents.
As Diaz settled into sleep at his grandmother's house that night, the sound of a window slamming shut awakened him. The family gathered in a closet and Diaz fell asleep standing up.
At his home in Cutler Ridge, the windows were blown out and the ceiling caving in. The dogs had survived but were covered in insulation. It was six months before the family could move back. Diaz recalls trying to salvage books and clothing from his bedroom, and his dad promising to buy him all new stuff.
"I remember thinking how remarkable it was that wind could do all that," says Diaz, now 28.
As the years passed, Diaz grew more and more curious about what happened. Today he is a tropical meteorologist, tracking hurricanes and tropical storms for ImpactWeather in Texas.
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