Houses caving in, trees falling on vehicles and people that couldn’t find their dogs.
These are the memories Johnson Atis, junior education major has of hurricane Andrew as it terrorized south Florida with category 5 strength 20 years ago.
At the time of hurricane Andrew, Bardawil was a student assistant for campus recreation.
“I remember working in the department” said Bardawil. “Remembering what had happened down south, the closure of the university, and what had happened in the community as a whole.”
Steven V. Moll, vice provost for Biscayne Bay Campus, remembered in vivid detail what he went through during Hurricane Andrew. His biggest day during Andrew was Aug. 22, 1992.
“On Saturday morning, the day before the hurricane hit, I got a call from Tony Marshall [former dean of Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.] He said to me, ‘You got to do me a favor. You have to go take all of the academic files, box them up, and take them to a higher floor and put it all away.’ This was in case there was any flooding, all of the records could be used.”
At the time, he was the director of academic advising at BBC.
On the same day, three foreign exchange students from Oxford Brookes University in the southeast of England had landed in Miami. The issue that sprung up was that the students that were living in the dorms had already evacuated. After Moll finished preparing BBC for the storm, he drove over to the airport to pick them up.
“The first thing I did after I picked them up from the airport, was take them to Miami Beach so they could see what it looked like before it got destroyed,” said Moll.
After the impromptu tour, Moll had to take the exchange students to his aunt’s home to bunker down and ride the storm out. The damage done to BBC was not as bad as in Country Walk.
“We had moderate damage to the campus. The equipment on top of the Recreation Center flew onto the field, and a few trees and flag poles toppled over.”
Nicole Yordan, senior hospitality management major, recalls her parents not being able to drive anywhere.
“I remember waking up and seeing 100 year old trees uprooted and toppled over,” Yordan said. “ I also remember hearing the wind. We had no shutters, so all we did was board and tape up the windows.”
Atis also relived how little they could eat.
“I was in the third grade at the time,” Atis said. “We were limited to how much food we could eat since we did not know how long the storm was going to last.”
“[At the time,] there was nothing of that magnitude that had hit the United States in our lifetime.” said Moll.