WritingSampleUncertainAndrew

B. L. Marchant

WRITING SAMPLE

Uncertain Future for Everyone After Andrew

(Initial observations after Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida on August 24, 1992)
Sebastian Sun, Barefoot Bay Sun

Officials have yet to make a final determination on the number, size and type of mobile homes that will be allowed to exist within the boundaries of storm-ravaged Dade County, - or whether any will be allowed at all.

Royal Palm, Four Seasons, Goldcoaster, Aquarius and Gateway Estates. Once neatly landscaped, quiet neighborhoods, suddenly turned into splinters within the wrath of Hurricane Andrew.

Mobile Home salesmen and owners alike had claimed the prefabricated homes were “the answer to affordable living,” and stood fast to statements made that the aluminum and wood structures are just as strong and safe as traditional homes.

“Oversized beer cans,” “metal coffins,” and “death traps,” are what former residents are calling them now.

Meteorologists, catastrophe experts and civil engineers are urging prospective mobile home buyers to think before they buy.

“We’ve seen mobile homes after winds way under 120 mph,” says Clifford Storm, Broward county’s chief building official. Storm is referring to the wind-speed a single-family house must withstand under the South Florida building code.

“The mobile homes are ripped and bent and twisted. They’re not worth a damn.”
Four people died in mobile homes during Hurricane Andrew. Seven people in conventional homes died, but 48 times as many Dade County residents live in them.
Since 1982, the number of mobile homes in south Florida increased by one-third, despite the potential danger of hurricane-force winds. More than 100,000 people in Dade, Broward and West Palm Beach counties resided in mobile homes before Hurricane Andrew.

Part of the reason for such popularity is, simply, affordability. Top-of-the-line doublewides, able to be furnished and decorated to appear like a conventional structure, can sell for as little as $34,900.

Cash-poor families, newlyweds just starting a credit history and retirees looking for sanctuary, have all found mobile homes in quiet park environments appealing and comfortable.

Some prospective mobile home buyers were indeed concerned about the movable structure’s integrity in hurricane winds.

Ken Cashin, president of the Florida manufactured Housing Association says, “Our products are built to withstand winds of up to 110 mph. The Federal code says we have to build to 110 mph.”

But the Federal mobile home code does not specify wind speeds. Instead, it sets construction rules based on pounds of pressure per square foot.

In 1989, calculations were published, determined by a Texas Tech University professor and a structural engineer for HUD. In what is possibly the only known study that relates pressure on mobile homes to wind speeds, these findings determine that the federal code guarantees mobile homes against winds of only 80 mph.

Building and zoning officials have been in conference almost constantly since Andrew struck the Homestead area during the early morning hours of Aug. 24. There is talk of a ban on mobile homes throughout Dade County.

Homestead officials proposed the ban after losing all but a handful of its mobile homes located in at least four separate sections of the city.

The Four Seasons Trailer Park, located at 220 N.E. 12 Ave., Homestead, is a leveled mass of twisted aluminum and splintered boards. The park’s concrete laundry and office building remain standing.

Aquarius Mobile Home Park, just blocks away, fared no better. What once had blocked the view of even the trailers within the park, now lies flat, affording a clear shot of the Florida Turnpike Extension from U.S. 1, almost two miles away.

Just across the highway to the west, the Royal Palm Trailer Park once stood, -over 100 lots strong.

It had bordered U.S. 1 on the east, Krome Avenue on the west and two cut-through streets on the north and south. It’s popularity came from its resting back-to-back with the American Legion’s Post 43.

Here, too, the concrete laundry room on the east side of the park still stands, as well as a half-dozen trailers in its vicinity. A large chunk of aluminum hangs suspended from a power line bordering U.S. 1.

Most of the residences in this park have been in place for close to 30 years. Some have added-on rooms still attached. The brand-names and styles vary among the survivors.

One trailer is almost crushed by another, hurled from its concrete pad four lots to the west. They rest, rooftop to rooftop, like an inside-out sandwich.

To the north within the park, twisted metal and heaps of furniture bring the appearance of a well-established landfill.

To the south, a lone trailer sits, virtually untouched, facing north. It hasn’t budged an inch. All others around this unusual sight are demolished and strewn about everywhere.

A five-foot chunk of sign rests facing north, wedged among the ruins of one of these mobile homes. It arrived here somehow, from its attachment to a post six miles to the south. The sign had faced south, signifying the entrance to the Turnpike for northbound traffic returning from the keys on U.S. 1.

The park manager’s house, built of mostly wood, is only half-standing. The other half is completely gone. Not a trace of it can be found among the wreckage of this once-filled park.

A man appearing to be in his late thirties drives up in a pickup truck. He says his name is “Bill,” and he’s “going to salvage whatever possible and get the hell out.” He once lived in the pile of debris he is parking next to.

It’s easy to become disoriented in the randomly distributed rubble. What had once been very familiar now appears confusing and unreal.

There is no apparent rhyme or reason to help explain the survival of some mobile homes, and the destruction of others.

Theories run rampant. Some of those picking through the wreckage say it had to do with the location of those that survived. Wind blocked by the laundry building may have spared those trailers next to it. But what of the lone trailer to the south, and the mobile home sitting intact on lot four? Lot three, next door to the west, is piled high with splinters of the trailer that once stood there.

Many were simply flipped upside down, one in its very own space!
Someone else says the key to survival was the materials used in construction. An Airstream trailer, with its rounded edges of riveted stainless steel, stands intact, while another home with squared edges, made of aluminum and plywood, has been reduced to a three-foot high pile of junk.

This theory joins other observations made throughout the path of Andrew’s destruction.

Homes protected by wood or aluminum shutters showed major signs of damage, including “slash” marks covering the exterior walls, -that is, marks left by debris thrashed against the sides of the home, and massive dents in the shutter material itself.

On the very same block, a home protected by stainless steel interlocking shutters is virtually untouched. There are no dents in the shutters, no shingles missing from the rooftop, no debris in the lawn. The shrubs have their leaves, and, oddly enough, no slash marks appear on any of the exterior walls.

A woman passing by exclaims at the destruction.

“It didn’t matter what you did to prepare. They had 2,000 tornadoes of radar at the (Homestead Air Force) Base, you know. That’s what did all this!”

Most of the victims asked agree that the tornadoes that made up much of Hurricane Andrew were to blame for the random sparing of houses and mobile homes. Building officials agree that the tornado factor will make an accurate assessment of “how” and “why” very difficult to conclude.

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BL Corcoran