Tropical Storm Barry (2007)

Following Hurricane Andrew’s assault on South Miami– Dade County in 1992, then-president George Bush flew over Homestead and its environs, and, even after that bird’s-eye view of things, returned to Washington, still undecided whether federal relief funds were truly necessary. Outraged community leaders demanded that Bush return for a street-level

Records indicate that the system was indeed a small one, with an eye no more than eight miles wide, and principal storm bands perhaps thirty miles across. But its compact size is also what gave the storm its legendary strength. No wind-speed-measuring instruments survived, but subsequent engineering analysis of the damage left behind suggested that

Even worse, the 1910 storm had slowed greatly by the time it reached shore. The effects of even a catastrophically powered hurricane such as Andrew in 1992, with its 175-mile-per-hour winds, are significantly mitigated if the storm passes over land quickly. Andrew moved ashore just above Homestead, just after midnight, at speeds of up to thirty mil

The hurricane of 1910 might have lacked the wind speed of an Andrew, but what it lacked in force, it made up for in staying power. It took more than thirty hours for the storm to pass over the Keys, long enough to convince anyone in its path that the onslaught would never end.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest in history, with some eight thousand lives claimed, packed winds in the 150-mile-per-hour range; while Andrew, in 1992, the costliest hurricane in history, with $25 billion in damages, was also officially labeled a Category 4, 155-mile-per-hour storm. Given what was coming at them on Labor Day of 1935,

The tropical rain fell in drenching sheets, hammering the corrugated roof of the clinic building, roaring down the metal gutters, splashing on the ground in a torrent.