What the hurricane didn’t destroy, poor planning did in the following weeks.

When Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida, one of the hardest hit areas was Homestead, Florida. Many people lost their lives. Many more lost their homes. But while many people had homeowner’s insurance and were able to rebuild, many of the businesses were under-insured or not insured at all.

For those businesses that did have facility insurance, the loss of business for several weeks, even months, dealt a blow that even facility insurance could not help. So when the home owner’s insurance checks started arriving in the mail and it was time to rebuild, many people chose to rebuild elsewhere since there were no places to work in the local area. Those businesses that were still open were not hiring. The people moved to where the jobs were. Homestead, Florida is still trying to recover financially from a disaster that was many years ago.