Columnist Susan Snyder: Windswept memories of Andrew

Friday, Aug. 23, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Promises should be kept.

I made a promise to Richard McLaughlin as we stood in the hollow shell that had been his home before Hurricane Andrew gutted it Aug. 24, 1992.

Take the World Trade Center wreckage and spread it over an area 18 miles wide. That was Andrew. A week after it hit, one of the thousands of soldiers sent to keep peace in a place that no longer existed told me, "If we'd bombed a place and it looked half this bad, we'd consider it a success."

The costliest weather-related disaster in U.S. history caused $25.2 billion in damage, destroyed an estimated 350,000 homes and left 175,000 people homeless. And 91 people died -- 40 in South Florida.

As a reporter for The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune I spent the three weeks following Andrew in Homestead and Florida City, then returned there days before Christmas and again a year later.

To anyone who grew weary of hearing about it, I can only say you had to be there. Some images stick, refusing to be forgotten.

A bundle of grocery store coupons floating in a filthy puddle. A bathtub packed with seaweed. The stench of food, insulation and who knows what else rotting in Florida's tropical heat. A man handing his little girl's kitten to a soldier outside Homestead City Hall.

"We can't keep it," he said to a man who now held a kitten in one hand and rifle in the other. "I can hardly find food for her."

I met Richard and Shirley McLaughlin as they ate powdered scrambled eggs supplied by one of the military kitchens set up to feed the thousands of homeless and hungry. People who never had taken charity became refugees waiting hours for free water and food. Andrew stole dignity.

Four months later people still lived like rats under plastic tarps anchored to crumbling walls. The rubble carted away would have filled the Orange Bowl three times with a pile 10 stories high. It was a third of what was to be collected.

The McLaughlins huddled under their bed mattress on the living room floor as Andrew clenched South Florida in its maw. Richard feared they would not survive. He shuddered and prayed, promising God he would evacuate the next time, if allowed to live. They emerged to daylight and not much else. Glass shards protruded from the mattress' top side.

While Shirley went to find water, Richard and I stood in the ruins of their home and talked.

He was 62 and had hoped to retire from the city water department that year. But Andrew stole that too. His lower lip trembled as he spoke. He cried openly when a neighbor from up the street handed him a soggy stack containing photos of his grandchildren and a birthday card he'd given Shirley.

Their Christmas decorations lay in a tinseled, tangled mess at our feet. He plucked out a Virgin Mary figure dangling from a gold thread and gave it to me.

"I want you to have it," he said. "I want you to remember us. I want you to remember this."

By Christmas Richard and Shirley had insurance money and a new home. But Richard's spirit was wrecked. Eight months after Andrew struck, Richard died. His liver failed first, Shirley said. But in the end he succumbed to a broken heart.

Every Christmas I will hang the ornament.

And every August, I will remember.

Promise.