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Effects of Hurricane Andrew Still Linger Over Florida
Aired August 23, 2002 - 14:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ten years -- it is hard to believe. I doesn't seem that along ago that Hurricane Andrew, one of the nation's most devastating storms slammed ashore. South Florida, of course, took a direct hit.
CNN's Miami bureau chief John Zarrella remembers only too well what happens next.
Afternoon -- John.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Afternoon, Anderson.
Well, we are here in Noranga Lakes (ph), which 10 years ago today was a thriving townhouse community. Hundreds of people lived here, lived a nice life down here in south Dade County, and overnight, their lives changed absolutely forever.
You can see now it is just weed overgrown. I'll give you a look over here to my right. Houses were all back in here; now people just dump debris here. It's hard to say whether some of this is hurricane- related debris, some of it just trash that has been dumped over the past 10 years. It has never been developed. It is one of the areas that has not fared very well down here in south Dade County.
A lot of people outside of south Florida probably say, OK, so it is 10 years later -- so what? Well, 90 million people live in the coastal communities from Maine to Texas, And if your area, a metropolitan area, happens to be hit, you can expect some awfully bad damage. The Insurance Institute of North America has put out some figures that will show in the Galveston, Houston, area, for example, a category five hurricane, like Hurricane Andrew, would cause $42.5 billion in damage. In New Orleans, $25.6 billion in damage. And the concern in New Orleans is for loss of life in the tens of thousands because it is below sea level. In Miami, if Andrew hit today, $53 billion. In Hampton, Virginia, $33.5 billion. And in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and then up into New York, $52 billion if a category four hurricane, which would be an extremely rare event, were to hit there.
People in south Florida, all over Florida, are literally still paying for what Hurricane Andrew did. It is the impact of insurance rates on the people of Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): Block after block, mile after mile, on what was left of nearly every home, the owners spray painted the names of their insurance companies, and very quickly it became very clear Andrew had set a new benchmark for destruction.
JOHN PISULA, STATE FARM: The big hurricanes were nothing compared to what Hurricane Andrew was. So how could we expect, you know, $16 billion worth of damage?
ZARRELLA: No one could. It was mind numbing. Six hundred thousand insurance claims were filed. A dozen companies went out of business. The industry realized a cold, chilling fact.
TOM GALLAGHER, FLORIDA INSURANCE COMMISSION: They undercollected the funds necessary to handle a storm such as Andrew.
ZARRELLA: And it could have been much worse.
ROBERT HARTWIG, INSURANCE INFORMATION INSTITUTE: Were a hurricane of the magnitude of Andrew to hit downtown Miami today, it would cost approximately $50 billion. It is very, very expensive.
ZARRELLA: To make sure there is enough in the coffers to pay for a worst-case scenario, the state was forced to create its own catastrophe fund, to backstop insurance companies. Still, rates since Andrew have gone through the roof -- according to the Insurance Commissioner's Office, up an average of 110 percent.
GALLAGHER: Some people are now paying three times what they paid before. So what do you say to them other than I wish it was less.
ZARRELLA: What no one can say is when rates will stop going up, let alone if they will ever go down, despite tough new post-Andrew building codes that should reduce hurricane losses.
The head of Florida's building commission doesn't get it.
RAUL RODRIGUEZ, CHAIRMAN, FLORIDA BUILDING COMMISSION: We're building better. The insurance rates definitely should be lower. The commission has struggled with this.
HARTWIG: Building codes may have changed since Hurricane Andrew; however, we still have the entire stock of housing that existed pre- Hurricane Andrew in existence today. In addition, development in Florida continues with abandon.
ZARRELLA: In Dade County, ground zero for Hurricane Andrew, the property value is 60 percent higher than 10 years ago. The bottom line, the insurance industry says, thanks to Andrew, if you want to live in paradise, you are going pay a lot more for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Now, clearly, this area in Noranga Lakes (ph) is not one of those areas of paradise -- not yet. It has been bought up by developer, but we ran into a woman not too long ago -- just a few minutes ago -- who came up here and said she used to live right over in this area in Noranga Lakes (ph). And she said they are still waiting for some of the payments due to them as a homeowner here. And they still haven't gotten those payment, Anderson, 10 years later -- Anderson. COOPER: Amazing. It's a very long time to wait.
John Zarrella, thanks very much.
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