Hammered by Andrew, Florida town’s rebuilding tested by Irma

September 10, 2017 by admin
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HOMESTEAD, Fla. (Reuters) – This sprawling suburb on Florida’s southern tip was nearly wiped flat by one hurricane 25 years ago. Now its residents hope they have rebuilt strong enough to withstand another.

With Hurricane Irma churning toward Florida on Friday, many people in Homestead prepared to hunker down in houses that are substantially more fortified than those that were swept aside when Hurricane Andrew came ashore in 1992.

Barrelling ashore with winds of up to 165 miles (265 km) per hour, Andrew ripped roofs off houses and stripped palm trees bare. The Category 5 hurricane was responsible for 61 deaths and $26.5 billion in property damage, making it one of the most expensive storms in U.S. history.

But a tough new building code approved after the storm required structures to be built to withstand wind speeds of at least 111 miles per hour. So-called hurricane impact windows, which are now common, must be made with shatterproof glass and cheap materials like particle board can no longer be used on roofs.

Even construction cranes, a common sight in downtown Miami, must be able to withstand winds of up to 145 miles per hour.

No one knows where Irma, a Category 4 storm with top sustained winds of 155 miles an hour late on Friday, will strike the hardest when it makes its projected landfall in south Florida on Sunday.

But fortified roofs and other measures to secure buildings have persuaded people like Joy McRae of Homestead, which includes a major agricultural area, to stay put rather than join the hordes trying to escape for safer ground north on the Florida Turnpike and Interstate 95.

“I convinced myself that it’s not going to be so bad,” said McRae, 56, as she listed the features of her concrete house, built in 2007, including both shatterproof windows and aluminium hurricane shutters.

Though McRae was worried about possible flooding – many new neighbourhoods in Homestead are built in low-lying areas – she said she did not expect a repeat of 1992, when Andrew tore the roof off her house and flattened entire neighbourhoods nearby.

“We’ve got everything battened down, we’re just getting some food and we’re ready to ride it out,” she said.

If south Florida is sturdier now than it was 25 years ago, it also presents a bigger target, however. The population has grown by more than one-third since Andrew, to 2.7 million, as high-rise condos have sprouted in downtown Miami and potato fields have been transformed into subdivisions in outlying areas like Homestead.

Homestead’s population has more than doubled since 1992 to 67,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and all that growth could lead to more devastation.

Insurer Swiss Re, in one estimate, said Irma would cause between $50 billion and $60 billion in damages if it were to take an identical path to Andrew.

That concerns some longtime residents, who say they are worried less by the prospect of property damage than by how their neighbours might behave in the chaos.

Schoolteacher Michael Littman, 51, recalls hearing gunshots at night after Andrew blew through his neighbourhood. Police struggled restore order for several days, he said, adding that he plans to keep his cellphone, wallet and Smith Wesson pistol close by this time around.

“I’ve seen anarchy before,” Littman said. “It’s shocking to see what happens when you strip away the thin veneer of civilization.”

Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Tom Brown

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The Mexican city with the highest number of quake deaths mourns — and gets to work

September 10, 2017 by admin
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JUCHITAN, Mexico — The Catholic priest waited out the earthquake in his spartan quarters, praying that the walls would stand. When he stepped out alone into the colonial courtyard late Thursday, his place of worship had transformed into a ghoulish scene of destruction.

He took in the shattered bell tower, collapsed church walls, two cars pancaked under the rubble. Across the plaza, school classrooms had been flattened. A few blocks away, city hall lay in ruins.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Lucio Santiago Santiago, 58, the priest at the San Vicente Ferrer church, its foundation dating to the 16th century, in the city that endured some of the most extreme damage from Mexico’s massive earthquake. Within minutes, he said, residents were screaming and shouting about the dead. “It was chaos.”

“This is a historic temple dear to the people’s heart,” Santiago said. “And look at it now.”

In this city that has recorded more than half of the earthquake’s fatalities, residents on Saturday had turned to the work of mourning the dead and cleaning up the wreckage. Teams of rescue workers with search dogs worked their way through the rubble looking for possible survivors while construction workers with backhoes and dump trucks cleared debris. Soldiers and police had sealed off several blocks around the city square while funeral processions passed amid downed power lines and broken glass. At least 36 people are known to have died here.

On Friday night, President Enrique Peña Nieto said that in Juchitan, a city of about 100,000 people in the state of Oaxaca, a third of homes either collapsed or were left uninhabitable by the earthquake. In block after block, there are houses with crumbled concrete walls or collapsed ceramic-tile roofs. Peña Nieto declared a three-day period of national mourning and vowed to help rebuild. By Saturday, the country’s total death toll had risen to 65 people.

[At least 58 killed in massive earthquake off Mexico coast]

The 8.2-magnitude earthquake that began a few minutes before midnight Thursday was centered in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s southwestern coast. The rumbling was felt for hundreds of miles and caused buildings to sway in Mexico City. But the damage to lives and property was clustered in southern states such Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco.

Residents in Juchitan are now sleeping outside: in their patios, in the street, or in makeshift hammock camps in parks and plazas. The injured are being treated in the hospital or in clinics converted into triage centers.

Martin Toral Nolasco, a 45-year-old chiropractor who runs a small clinic, said he had helped treat residents with broken arms and legs.

Toral, who is sleeping with his family in the patio of his house, said that because of aftershocks, many residents are afraid to sleep in damaged houses. Prices are skyrocketing in the stores that remain open, he said, as is the cost of a taxi. He said he worries about robberies and possible looting.

“We are starting to see shortages of food,” Toral said.

“It’s about to explode.”

[Mexico’s cataclysmic history of earthquakes]

Outside the city, on the road along the coast from the tourist town of Huatulco, residents worked to repair damage, fixing broken windows, repairing roofs and clearing away small landslides or scattered boulders that had spilled onto the road.

But the earthquake seemed to have concentrated its furies in Juchitan and surrounding towns in the isthmus region in Oaxaca, where Mexico’s waist narrows.

Even as recovery began, Mexico was forced to juggle another emergency, as Hurricane Katia made landfall Friday night along the Gulf Coast, in the state of Veracruz. At least two people died in a mudslide from the storm, which blasted the coastline with 75 mph winds, according to the state governor. Several thousands had evacuated the area.

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