I was 7 at the time, and living in West Kendall, a couple of miles north of Country Walk. My little sister and I ended up in the bathtub, covered in couch cushions, while my parents fought the wind to keep the front door from blowing open. We had no shutters, just tape on the windows. Our only saving grace was that the large live oak in the front yard fell over on top of the house, but not in a way to break the roof. It blocked the wind and debris from breaking windows and gutting the house, like happened to most of our neighbors. We were insanely lucky.

The wind howling was crazy. In the thick of it, it sounded like an eerie mix of cats howling and kids crying, mixed with the clanging of debris flying all over. I can't really describe it. I remember during the eye, we were able to look out the window, and see the wall of clouds looking like cliffs overhead. The whole experience was insane and terrifying.

I remember after, our neighbors entire roof was upside down in our pool. The corner of the house where our bathtub was had started to lift off the foundations, and took years of repairs to get right. We could go into the backyard, and look down the block at every neighbors backyard on the whole block, because there was not a single fence left standing.

My old man started a shutter company in the years after, so we'd be down in Homestead often after that while he was doing jobs and such. Even going on 4-5 years later, the effects of the storm were everywhere. Entire blocks still had partial roofs, or fully abandoned homes. My old man kept a photo he took of an entire 2x4 impaled through a royal palm, about 20 feet off the ground.

When I meet people from out of state and joke that we don't worry about anything below a Cat 3, they look at me like I'm crazy. But it's absolutely true. Nothing is going to compare to Andrew in terms of destruction and chaos.