re: Hurricane Andrew 1992 - 34 years ago this morning (FL) through Wednesday morning (LA)

i went down to Turkery Point power plant south of Miami right after this to help rebuild that power plant. I was 20. I felt like I was in another country.

Rode it out in my grandparents turn of the century home in downtown Morgan City. That big old 2 story cypress house made noises I can still hear to this day. Felt like a freight train was coming thru. I'll never ride anything above a 3 out again after Andrew.

Was 8 when it hit in Thibodaux. Remember helping my dad board up the windows and also helping some neighbors board up as well. Our cat, who was the prettiest cat i've ever had and we've had a few over the years, didn't know what to do and decided to go hide under the engine in the car later in the day and when my dad went to leave to go help another neighbor board up the cat got cut up by the fan. Still remember seeing it wobble into the vacant lot next door bleeding from his head. Couldnt' get the vet to come help as he was obviously busy like everyone else and ole Boots died about an hour later.

I remember getting up in the middle of the night and my dad was in the living room, i'm sure nervous as hell about his home, somethign i understand now as an adult with a home. Felt like the house was breathing, like it was inhaling and exhaling. Felt very creepy and like the house was going to implode or something. Dad opened the door under the carport and definitely felt the difference like the house was able to relax, although it was pretty crazy outside at that point, and the power was out so it was really dark outside. A tornado hit 2 streets behind us and uprooted a huge oak tree that fell right on a couples bedroom and onto their bed. Had they not been up and in the living room they'd likely have been killed. I don't think anyone's fence around us made it through unscathed.
When we finally got to go outside in the morning i just remember debris being everywhere, like a bomb went off. We didn't have electricity for a good 2 weeks b/c of that little tornado knocking down a bunch of powerlines. I do recall the neighbors across the street from us had an small aluminum shed, and we found it a couple hundred yards into the cane fields behind their house.

I spent 1970-1992 in EBRP, and moved to Alexandria in August 1992, and Andrew is the first hurricane I remember. Weird. Surely there were others to hit LA after Camille, before Andrew.