Today Pinellas County has nearly 870,000 people. In Dade County alone, the storm destroyed 63,000 homes and damaged 110,000 others. Nine small insurance companies failed. Large companies raised rates, dumped policies and tried to pull out of coastal areas, but regulators forced them to stay. It could easily have happened already, in fact, except for pure dumb luck.
Storms are capricious.
Indeed, the National Hurricane Center's warnings, issued 24 hours before landfall, are subject to a 90-mile error in either direction. For that reason, even a well-tracked storm like Hurricane Andrew could have caused death on a huge scale, just by zigging a few miles to the north at the last minute. Had it made landfall on Miami Beach, where a third of residents didn't evacuate, Andrew could have killed many more than the 15 people whose lives it claimed. Click for more options or for help .