Preliminary report Hurricane Andrew, August 16-28, 1992.

Andrew was a small and ferocious Cape Verde hurricane that wrought unprecedented economic devastation along a path through the northwestern Bahamas, the southern Florida peninsula, and south-central Louisiana. Preliminary damage estimates in the United States range from $15-30 billion, making Andrew the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. The tropical cyclone struck southern Dade County, Florida, especially hard, with violent winds and storm surges characteristic of a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, and with a central pressure (926 mb) that is the third lowest this century for a hurricane at landfall in the United States. In Dade County alone, the forces of Andrew resulted in 15 deaths and one-quarter million people homeless. An additional 25 lives were lost in Dada County from the indirect effects of Andrew, but the total of 40 lives lost there seems remarkably low considering the destruction caused by the hurricane.