Mother Nature's Angriest Child

It's an odd practice, this naming of hurricanes. Yet anthropomorphizing nature's brutal forces somehow seems to help people cope with the otherwise incomprehensible devastation wreaked by these storms. So it was with Andrew, a ^ simple name for people to curse, fear, blame and remember. Andrew proved a most powerful, if petulant, child, rampaging across the Bahamas and the populous tip of southern Florida and into Louisiana's Cajun country, with strength enough to hoist trucks atop buildings, destroy houses and vaporize mobile homes, impale yachts on pier pilings and even strip paint off walls. With winds up to 164 m.p.h., Andrew proved more expensive than Hugo, which ripped through the Carolinas in 1989, and more destructive than any of the recent California earthquakes -- in sum, the costliest natural disaster in American history.

As Andrew's tantrum swirled around the home of Jo and Bruce Powers in Naranja, Florida, a Miami suburb, they hid with their two children, Jo's sister Karen Brocato and several neighbors in a couple of small bathrooms. For two hours Bruce, his foot braced on the sink, pressed his 200-lb. frame against the door to keep the hurricane from ripping it open. They heard glass shatter and stick in the walls. Water poured in around the medicine chest, and the tub rattled itself away from the wall. Roof tiles flew under the door. "I've never been so scared in my life," recalls Brocato. "I hope I die if I'm ever that afraid again. We all dirtied our pants."

Almost like a tornado, Andrew cut a 20-to-35-mile swath south of Miami that leveled entire city blocks and left residents without electricity, phones, drinkable water, sewage treatment, food or shelter. Armed troops patrolled the streets to stop looters, some of whom brought in rental trucks to haul away their booty. The response by state and federal government was slow and disjointed. But by week's end President Bush had ordered 14,400 troops into the disaster area with mobile kitchens, tents, electrical generators, water and blankets. Now hundreds of thousands of the newly homeless -- some sleeping in their cars or in campers -- must try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives from the rubble. Even those lucky enough to have homes may not have electricity for more than a month.

Despite hard times, Americans have been rushing money and supplies to the damaged areas. But in the long run, pluck and perseverance will no doubt prove to be the most trustworthy ally for Andrew's survivors. Mitch and Penny Burke, newly wed, emerged from a closet after the storm ripped through their comfortable home in southern Dade County to find they had lost almost everything -- dining-room furniture, bed, clothes, wedding gifts. The damage was so bad that their entire neighborhood may have to be razed. "We've got new wallpaper, but no walls," said Penny with resolute humor. "I told the neighbors not to bother knocking when they come visit."

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CAPTION: THE GRIM AFTERMATH