We’ve got ourselves a little monster out there,” anchorman Jim Cantore warned, facing the camera in the Weather Channel’s newsroom on a sultry August weekend in 1992. At first, few in Florida were paying attention. “It’s very hard to get people to believe that there’s some danger from some element of nature that they haven’t experienced before,” a reporter told Cantore, as the channel played tape of tranquil beaches and neat vacation homes.
As the storm approached Florida, it gained the moniker “Andrew,” rapidly intensifying into a Category 5 hurricane as it exceeded wind speeds of 165 mph. Karen Clark watched updates on TV from her home in Boston with fascinated horror — and her career on the line.
Most insurance companies at that time assessed hurricane exposure in their portfolios by simply multiplying customer premiums by a rough factor of supposed risk, rather than tracking actual property […]
I was paid by the Italian govt. to write a report on climate a long time ago. My data source was the CNA, Central Naval Analysis think used by all branches of the military. As you know,a news report from a London Think tank was published around the same time. Many people in the US did not want to hear about it. I took it as an opportunity to research and learn. To take steps in my private life that would address the change. To hide from an emergency is to suffer the consequences.