Hurricane Andrew
Hurricane Andrew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, searchHurricane Andrew was the third most powerful Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States during the 20th century, after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Camille in 1969.
Andrew was the first named storm and only major hurricane of the otherwise inactive 1992 Atlantic hurricane season. During Andrew's duration it struck the northwestern Bahamas, southern Florida at Homestead (south of Miami), and southwest Louisiana around Morgan City in August. Andrew caused $26.5 billion in damage ($41.1 billion 2010 USD), with most of that damage cost in south Florida; however, other sources estimated the total cost between $27 billion to $34 billion. Its central pressure ranks as fourth-lowest in U.S. landfall records and Andrew was the costliest Atlantic hurricane in U.S. history until surpassed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was one of two intense hurricanes to strike the United States that year; Hurricane Iniki in the Central Pacific struck Hawaii and the Hawaiian Islands a few weeks later as a Category 4 hurricane.
Florida
As with most high-intensity storms (Categories 4 and 5), the worst damage from Andrew is thought to have occurred not from straight-line winds but from vortices , or tornadoes or "miniwhirls" (something like embedded tornadoes). This was the conclusion of Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, a University of Chicago meteorologist who is known for the development of the Fujita scale for measuring the strength of tornadoes.
Looting also occurred in Florida after the storm, with at least 100 people attempting to ransack the Cutler Ridge shopping mall south of Miami. However, the deployment of 600 National Guard troops in the region restored order.
Andrew produced a 17 feet (5.2 m) storm surge near the landfall point in Florida. A tidal surge of 16.9 feet (5.2 m) was recorded at the shoreline of SW 184th Street (Eureka Drive), the former location of the Burger King world corporate headquarters on the coast of the Perrine/Cutler Ridge area (directly within the path of the northern eyewall). Storm surge destruction was minimal, though, because of Andrew not moving over Miami itself.
Rainfall was limited in Southeast Florida because of Andrew traveling through at fast speeds (between 20 and 25 "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew" Categories: Hurricane