Never occurred to me to question the official death count re Andrew. But I did drive from Boca to Key Largo two weeks after the 'cane and marveled at how resilient the human body is, as clearly a lot of people had to have been thrown around. My friend, a Miami physician, had her roof blown off but headed straight for the hospital anyway to get to work on the injured. She never said a word about uncounted bodies....Will we ever know for sure?
Sorry you lost your home to Andrew and that you had to leave SoFL. Sorry I left too...thinking of moving back to Naples perhaps. NOLA is appealing to a certain extent, but the crime is discouraging. And now this. I woke up Sunday literally shaking about Katrina and I've hardly slept since.....maybe a little Andrew distress hangover.??? God help everyone on the Gulf Coast.
Another driver of the Andrew conspiracy theory is people simply not believing the amazing ability of people to survive wind damage alive.
Even in a house that has lost its roof AND its walls, most people are going to live. People are really, really hard to kill with pure wind damage..a lot will be severely injured by debris, but you still have a chance.
It's water that is the efficient killer; but people just couldn't believe so many people lived in places like Cutler Ridge, because of the spectacular visual nature of the damage.
I just keep thinking back to Hurricane Andrew, and how we all felt so relieved "it wasn't worse" - until a few days later, when the full devestation was revealed.
I felt blessed this morning that New Orleans had been "spared" a direct hit, and hoping that it would not damage the rest of the coast. But now, waiting for word from Mississippi and rural points around the Gulf, I'm getting this sick feeling...
Hurricane Katrina is so huge, so monstrous, that there is no way to be "spared" from it. Even if one city might "dodge the bullet" and escape complete destruction, another city will not. It is not the same as any other hurricane I have ever witnessed. If any stories of mercy have come out, it is truly a testimony to the saving power of God.
Praying to God that those still in peril may be saved...
The local hospital, James Archer Smith, sustained too much damage to be open .. so medical tents were sprinkled throughout the main areas, and one doctor's office in Homestead was able to be taken over by health care workers for medical help. I went there for my sheet metal run-in tetanus shot. The next open hospital, if it was able to be opened, would've been Coral Reef Hospital in Perrine; then Baptist in Kendall. But I was in too much chaos to even know what their status was.
The focus in all storm areas was on medical emergencies, minor and major. The undocumented alien residents probably ran into the thousands, between Homestead and Florida City, so I'm not sure that a hospital out of the Princeton-Naranja-Homestead-Florida City areas would even have gotten word of the thousands of details from the daily issues .. medical, health, death ... that were occurring in deep South Dade for months. Days and nights ran together, residents, military, relief and emergency crews alike were in shock and pushed to the limits of fatigue, and the crises, devastation and critical issues were mammouth down south ... every day for months.