A Journey Back Home

When I was in my early teens, growing up in Madison, Florida, it was a great interest of mine to track hurricanes. Each hurricane season I would get my hurricane tracking map and track tropical waves formed off the West African coast, and in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Some remained tropical storms; some dissipated or developed into major hurricanes. I learned about latitude and longitude. I learned the location of the Windward Islands, Leeward Islands, Lesser Antilles, Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic/Haiti), the countries of Central America, Yucatán Peninsula, Dry Tortugas, the outer banks of North Carolina, cities and towns on the Texas Gulf Coast, cities and towns on the Atlantic coast in Georgia, South Carolina, and farther north, southern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I knew all of Florida.

I remember, in 1964, the first time I felt the need to evacuate because of a storm. It was Hurricane Dora. At the time, I lived at 505 SW Parramore Street. The county advertised two shelters for evacuees, one at Madison High School, a white school, and the other at Madison County Training School, a black school. Madison High School was located five blocks from my home on Parramore Street. Madison County Training School was located two and a half miles south of my home.

The county did not announce that blacks should go to the black school and whites should go to the white school. I guess it was understood by everyone except me and a few of my friends.

I thought one could go to the nearest shelter. When my friends and I approached the entrance to the shelter at Madison High School, we were told by a Red Cross worker that we could not come in. We had to go to the shelter at Madison County Training School for colored people.

Mrs. Albertha Brinson drove me to my house, en route to MCTS, to get my portable typewriter. During my stay at the shelter, I typed a blistering letter of protest to the national office of the American Red Cross.

The national office of the American Red Cross wrote me a letter apologizing and assured me that this would never happen again.

I moved to Miami in 1965, and, twice prior to August 1992, we had to board up the house because a hurricane was threatening south Florida.

On August 23, 1992, the National Hurricane Center, in Coral Gables, predicted Hurricane Andrew would make landfall between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. If that was the case, my family, living in the Richmond Heights area of Miami, would be okay.

We boarded up the house. Each window had precut plywood to fit it. The plywood was bolted into the concrete. I boarded every window except the bathroom window on the east side of the house. I thought that if the bathroom window was blown out, the water coming into the bathroom would flow out through the bathtub.

I felt we needed another way out of the house in case something was blown up against the front door and we could not get out through it. That was a serious mistake.

We brought all the items from outside the house that would take flight with the high wind. I brought the barbecue pit and charcoal from the outside shed and placed them in the utility room, thinking they would be safe inside the house.

We filled the car gas tank with gas, bought food, turned the refrigerator to the coldest setting, filled up containers with water, and were ready for Hurricane Andrew, so I thought.

I had recently been hired by the University of Miami School of Medicine MRI Center, as insurance coordinator. I was scheduled to begin working on August 24, 1992.

We were listening to the TV and learned that the hurricane had changed course. It was predicted to make landfall between Cutler Ridge and Homestead. Richmond