Hurricane Andrew is the second most destructive hurricane in United States history. Hurricane Andrew was the first named hurricane of the 1992 Atlantic hurricane season, and it struck in August.
Andrew damaged areas in the northwestern Bahamas, South Central Louisiana and Southern Florida area, south of Miami.
The total amount of damage in cost, caused by Hurricane Andrew, was totaled at $26 billion in 1992 dollars. Most of the damage was in South Florida though.
A total of 65 people died from it, and countless were injured. The central pressure ranking of Hurricane Andrew was the fourth lowest in U.S. landfall history.
Hurricane Andrew's Beginnings
Andrew started as a tropical wave from Africa, which spawned a tropical depression, which then became Tropical Storm Andrew the next day.
The storm actually almost dissipated on August 20, but then when it was midway between Bermuda and Puerto Rico, it began turning westward into a much more favorable environment.
Andrew made landfall twice while it was moving through the Bahamas. The storm then was made weakened after it made landfall the second time. It maintained strong winds though and the pressure kept rising.
However while it was crossing the Gulf Stream, it gained strength quickly and became a Category 5 hurricane briefly while it made landfall over South Florida on August 24, with the pressure being at 922 mbar and wind speeds of 165 miles per hour.
Hurricane Andrew then continued in the westward direction, towards the Gulf of Mexico, as a Category 4 hurricane, where it then gradually turned north.
This brought the hurricane to central Louisiana's coast on August 26th, by then though it was only a Category 3. It then turned north east and merged with a front system over the Mid-Atlantic States. As of 2007, Hurricane Andrew has only been surpassed by 3 hurricanes, those being the Labor Day hurricane in 1935, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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