Hurricane Andrew

Although, the low death toll of Hurricane Andrew on August 14th, 1992 of 44 people caused is not quite comparable to Hurricane Katrina's much higher death toll of 1,836 people (2) the demographic effects caused by both hurricanes are however similar. The list of facts below provides reasoning for shifts and changes in the demographics of southern Florida. 28,066 homes were destroyed, 82,000 businesses were destroyed or damaged, 107,380 homes were damaged, 250,000 people were left homeless, 700,000 people were evacuated, 1.4 million homes were left without electricity, and 1,167 mobile homes were destroyed. The total cost of Hurricane Andrew was $26.5 billion (some media sources put the number as high as $30 billion.) (1) A case study done that focused on the demographic effects of Dade County, Florida, where the Hurricane had the utmost effect. The study separated the county, North and South Dade, by North Kendall Drive. The population of South Dade was younger than that of North Dade. It had higher proportions of children and lower proportions of elderly and Hispanics. South Dade was made up of more educated and the residents averaged a higher income. The study measured the county's pre-hurricane population to total to be approximately 1,990,500 people. It is estimated that around 353,300 permanent residents (166,100 North residents and 187,200 South residents) of Dade County were all forced to leave their homes because of the hurricane's destruction. As seen from previous facts, South Dade had a higher population of residents who are younger and more likely to be having children. It can be assumed that the rate of birth decreased over the time period of residents either permanently migrating or coming back after everything had been fixed or replaced. The number of weeks that it took for residents to be able to move back was drastically different between North and South Dade. Since the North wasn't hit as hard the majority of the residents moved back in a week or less after the hurricane. In Southern Dade it took a noticeably longer period of time between 27 and 52 weeks after the hurricane. Between the years 1992 and 1993 the county's population fell by approximately 32,000, but once everything from the hurricane had settled down the population grew from the pre-hurricane numbers by 39,000.

(1) http://stormfacts.net/handrew.htm

(2) http://www.hurricanekatrinarelief.com/faqs.html#What%20is%20the%20death%20toll%20of%20Hurricane%20Katrina

(3) http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/40230118.pdf?acceptTC=true

(4) http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2061876.pdf