Tales from the CDCR: 3) CDCR 1992 . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida on August 24th, that year.
That last week of August was picking stuff up and repairing the shop where I worked and fixing mostly anything in my line of sight, in any direction, at home.  Enduring lack of power, lack of showers, lack of anything cold to drink, or warm to eat.  The 2nd week, we spent just trying to get back to normal while discovering just how bad off, things really  were.

I spent most of the month of September, in south Dade. 
Moving out co-workers from wreckage into temporary apartments.  Cars piled high with furniture and whatnot, like the Miami Version of the "Beverly Hillbillies".  Working alongside power workers from the Carolinas.  They were licensed; I was not. 
Nobody asked; nobody cared. 
I would do everything to a house that was necessary, right up to where the power company boys could run a drop to the house.  Suddenly, a co-worker, or a friend had lights in their kitchen and hope in their hearts, for the first time in a month.  It was physically wearying and emotionally draining.

I didn't even look at Urchin, intact but abandoned and marooned, in the driveway.

After 6 weeks, most of my friends and acquaintances were covered and attention then turned to the migrant workers. Those non-people were ignored by FEMA (Failure to Effectively Manage Anything) since there wasn't any slot on the FEMA org-charts, in which to put someone who wasn't a For-Real By-God American Property Owner.  Many (if not most) were from Third World Countries and too ignorant of American Resources to even know how badly they were being ignored by Officialdom. 
They were just hungry and thirsty. 
So, they went back to their Third World Ways, like drinking any water clear enough to see through, with the predictable results of all the Third World Diseases, re-visiting them. 

The Salvation Army was down there in droves, with kindly intentions, loving attentions and absolutely No Clue as to who they were helping.  They would provide a bologna sandwich and bottle of water for lunch and send home a bag of rice or beans to make dinner with.  In the humid hot tropics (or how south Florida feels after a hurricane), you NEED hot sauces to perspire and have the perspiration evaporate to cool you off.  Rice & beans without Tabasco sauce or peppers in vinegar was nearly as much Cruelty, as Kindness to those people.  One of our workers was married to a Nicaraguan and he clued us in.  We took to following the Salvation Army trucks around and supplying the OTHER half of the victim's customary meals.  As word got around, it got easier and all we had to do was to get a case of Tabasco or whatever and hand it off to the nearest Salvation Army truck, knowing it would get disbursed.

That was well into the first week of October.

While progress was all around and construction was all over everywhere; all our neighborhoods looked like a Redneck after a Bar Fight.  Every block had "missing teeth" in the form of neat rows of homes, with a gap here and there, where a house used to be.  I began to despair of ever feeling anything again, but weariness and depression.

The Friday before the Columbus Day Cruising Regatta, which we had already PAID for    (although my entry form and race packet was probably under about 8 feet of muck in the Everglades, somewhere) the race had been canceled by the Race Committee, on account of most of the fleet was still on the bottom of Biscayne Bay.      
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I felt Guilty about wanting to party and sail my butt off, when there were still so many people without shelter or anything even approaching Normalcy.  Then I felt Anger towards them for depriving me of even Self-Pity.
That was when something deep inside me, snapped.

Even though all of Officialdom was strongly discouraging it, I took my boat down to Key Biscayne.
No TOLLS!!   
The toll booths were still missing.
No Ramp fee!
No Ramp, either.   
There were still enough pilings left to see approximately where you needed to launch and Lord knows, the parking lot was free enough, if you didn't mind sharing your parking spaces with tons of fallen Casuarina trees and Palm tree trunks and debris.  I threaded my way through all the vegetative carnage and launched anyway, while a wary Metro Dade police cruiser circled suspiciously, wondering if I was going out to loot sunken boats, somehow.

Saturday Morning, 9am.  Same time I always left!   Headed out the channel, enjoying not having to dodge jet skis and fishing boats. 
West past the Miami Seaquarium, half of it's anodized canopy still missing, but gamely open for business, blue tarps flapping in the breeze.  Went across the Bay to where the CDCR committee boats usually staged the Saturday Start, on the other side of Biscayne Bay, right next to a stump sticking up out of the water; the remains of the formerly lighted channel marker.   
GEEZE!!     It STILL took me until 11am (our normal start time) to get to where the line usually is!     My watch beeped the hour and mentally, I heard the starting cannon go off.
I trimmed in the main.
Sailed around a submerged grocery cart.
Headed south, beating into an east-southeast breeze of 11 knots, rock-steady.  Hurricane Season is such marvelous weather down here, if there isn't a whirly-girl in the neighborhood.  Sailed all the way down to Biscayne Channel where the Cruise ships used to leave for the Bahamas until they improved Government Cut, partly for improved shipping from Dodge Island, but mostly for the Cruise ships.

Might be slow, but I was sure I could beat THIS guy! 
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Slowly, the knots in my brain started to untie loosely enough, that the knots in my shoulders didn't ache so much.  I could feel my blood pressure slowly dropping to more normative levels.  A final tack southwest, to where the committee boat SHOULDA been and I held up my race number: 302
So what if it was last year's number?     I was back in the race!     
I quickly had to steer around the jutting barely above the surface sunken tuna tower, of a sportsfishing boat that wherever it was, was in dire need of its tuna tower.   
Or worse, the tuna tower was maybe still mounted on top of the sportsfisherman. 

I headed over to Featherbed Banks, on my way to Sands Cut and realized: I had the WHOLE ANCHORAGE to myself for a change.   
I could anchor anywhere I want!!   
Not near the Maytag Washing Machine, though.      
Bone weary, Foot weary and Soul weary, I tossed out the anchor and had a bottle of water and ate from a can of SPAM, which necessitated drinking ANOTHER bottle of water.  No fancy victuals and ice chests; I had gotten out of the habit of eating good food, in the past month.  At First, there wasn't any and later on, it was hard to get down good food, after being in south Dade and seeing all I had seen.

I slept, like I hadn't slept in a month and a half.

The next morning, I got up and decided that as the Self-Appointed Race Committee, the Race was starting: NOW!!
My Sneak Start beat out two coots and a blue crab drifting along the surface.  I sailed the entire course clear back to where the Cruise ships would be again soon, once they got the rest of the junk out of the way. 
It was a pleasant morning. 
Crossing my Imaginary Finish Line that afternoon, I looked around and decided as the sole boat in the Bay, that I was the OFFICIAL WINNER of the 500th(1492-1992) ANNIVERSARY of the Columbus Day Cruise (commemorating a small boat cruise made in 1492) for the first time, EVER!    

When I got home, I mailed a letter to Coral Reef Yacht Club stating my reasons for believing I had won (the only boat out there) and detailed my course, to prove I had sailed a typical gunkhole course.  I expected no response and my letter to be tossed in a trash can, so I was surprised on  Thursday to receive a letter, on a letterhead yet, stating that according to Rule XX-YY sub-A of USSA rules; that since the committee boat didn't record the times, they were not acceptable to the race committee.  I smiled, knowing that more people were on the emotional mend than I thought, if they could respond so tongue-in-cheek, while still being formal.

The best CDCR race I had ever sailed, and not another living soul, in sight.
But never before, was a race needed so badly.

Charles Brennan

[Norm L.]

Thank you for that tale, Charles.
I certainly have Camille (number 49 in Mississippi since 1900) and Katrina in mind and understand extensive damage.
While not personally seeing Andrew I do know that it was the costliest hurricane until Katrina. I did get reports from people that spent time in Homestead so heard their reports. In the days prior to extensive news coverage there were still many photos put into the news. Part of the tragedy is that the storm centered on plain people. The days before condo-itis.

[Doug SC]

Lending a helping hand in a big way. I know it's expected in times like that, but I still admire what you did. Hugo comes to mind here in SC September of 89.