Houses surrounded by water in St. Augustine, Florida Oct. 8 in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.
Credit: Marc Serota / Greenpeace

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew ripped through southeast Florida, doing more than $26 billion in damage and killing at least 65 people. At the time, I was working on a masters degree in marine biology in southeast Florida; several of my close friends lost their homes during the storm.

Our marine lab was at the end of a barrier island and there were so many overturned Australian pines along the road that it looked like someone had dumped a giant bag of Lincoln Logs. I remember helping friends move their belongings off houseboats and out of trailers to higher and safer ground, and the mint green color of the sky just before our transformer blew up.

Strangest of all, I remember being asked to shoot holes in the deck of a yacht to try to put […]