Memories of Andrew (part 3)

I spoke to my sister yesterday. She works in Port Charlotte, and though her place of employment was damaged by Hurricane Charley, the building was repaired & reopened in record time. Through it all, the wheels of commerce turn.
One place the wheels won't be turning anymore is Rhodes Furniture in Charlotte Harbor, which I hear was flattened by Charley. I worked there one summer, until I was let go for no apparent reason. Funny how when I came in the following week to pick up my final paycheck, the store manager's niece was sitting there alphabetizing the endless files of crumpled sales orders that were formerly the bane of my existence. It was a crummy job anyway, and I got to put in more hours at the pizza place, where the pay was better and the work much more enjoyable (drive a pizza truck with an oven in the back, listen to the radio, and occasionally drop off a pizza).

Back in '92 after Hurricane Andrew hit, things weren't any different with regard to the aforementioned wheels of commerce. The second day after Andrew tore through South Florida, I was sent back down to Puerto Rico. My flight (as usual) was out of Miami International Airport. MIA is usually a chaotic place, but this was the craziest I'd ever seen it. There was no running water available in the terminals, so if Nature called, you answered in a Porta Potty outside. If you wanted a drink, you got a Dixie cup of water from one of the volunteers pouring bottled water. The plane I flew on to Puerto Rico had water, but no ice.

On departure, I saw some of the damage that Andrew left in its wake. Cars tossed here and there, roofs missing, and trees down all over. Then we flew over Homestead. It looked like a 100-foot tall giant had gone on a bender and stomped on everything in sight. Just about every house and building was flattened, and the Air Force Base looked like a junkyard. The base was pretty much destroyed, and was closed by the U.S. government. After its closure, the U.S. Air Force Reserve was able to occupy a small part of the base, providing at least a small infusion of money into the local economy.