How about this shocker? On Aug.24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida with sustained winds of 140 mph devastating Homestead, Florida City and parts of Miami. This massive storm then continued northwest across the Gulf of Mexico to strike the Louisiana coastline.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, prior to Hurricane Katrina, Andrew had caused the largest insured losses in U.S. history-$15.5 billion ($22,939 in 2011 dollars). It also resulted in 700,000 claims; destroyed 107,380 homes; and destroyed or damaged 82,000 businesses.
This is important to keep in perspective since hurricanes such as Andrew, Katrina, Rita and a few others do not occur very often.
Does that mean that we should sit back and give it a vague thought every 10 or 20 years, while we go on about our daily business and not give these major catastrophes any consideration?
In the recent past the Georgia coast and South Georgia have not been exposed to a killer storm and that leaves us in the typical mindset of, “Well, it won’t happen to me.”