Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

One way to avoid future failures is for insurance companies to do the inspections themselves. The advantages are obvious. Private inspectors wouldn't have the ludicrous quotas imposed on county inspectors, nor would they be subject to cronyism and political pressures. Many homeowners would welcome a visit from an independent expert.

Not long after the hurricane, a State Farm executive told me that hiring its own inspectors was a good idea, but too expensive. It's hard to imagine anything more expensive than Andrew.

Say State Farm spent $20 million a year on building inspections.That's only 1/170th of the $3.4 billion that the company shelled out in hurricane claims. In retrospect, inspectors would have been a smart investment.

While USF&G insures less than 1 percent of Florida's homeowners, its new inspection policy covers all customers around the country. If other insurers tried the same program, the quality of coastal construction might improve dramatically. Who's going to a build a house that can't be insured?

The key is incentive. Insurance companies have the most to lose when the next hurricane hits—and the strongest motivation to make sure history doesn't repeat itself. If that means climbing a few roofs and counting a few nails, it's a small price to pay.

How soon we forget what these storms do June 9, 1994

The governor's special hurricane committee has warned that Florida is flirting with "great loss of life and property in coming years" unless strict construction laws are passed.

The committee's chairman made "an urgent plea that this report not be put on a shelf and forgotten."

The governor was LeRoy Collins. The year was 1960. The hurricane was Donna. Everyone wanted to make sure such needless destruction wouldn't happen again.

But time passed, and people did forget. Just like today.

A hearing examiner says the only Metro building inspector fired in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew should get his job back—a poetic beginning to the new hurricane season.

It was a foregone conclusion that nobody of consequence would be punished for the crimes exposed by Andrew. The builders who slapped together the lousy houses, the developers who sold them and the inspectors who rubber-stamped them had little to worry about from Dade prosecutors, or anyone else.

What modest progress is being made to prevent another disaster comes against powerful opposition. Even now, special interests are trying to weaken hurricane reforms before they take effect.

From a pessimistic Herb Saffir, engineer and nationally recognized expert on hurricane damage: "The only thing I can say is, I hope we don't get an Andrew-type storm coming through the populated areas of Miami."

After Andrew, public outrage and press scrutiny forced the Metro Commission to review building practices and enforcement. The Board of Rules and Appeals, a lap dog of the building trades, was supplanted by a more independent Building Code Committee.

To the surprise of no one (especially those living at Country Walk or Naranja Lakes), the panel found that much of Andrew's devastation was the result of poor housing designs and flawed construction. Yet virtually every worthwhile reform faced opposition. The industry's recurring argument was that home buyers won't pay a little extra for better shutters, stronger windows and nailed-down roofs. Total nonsense.

Eventually, new standards were approved. Shutters, garage doors and windows would be required to withstand higher winds, high-speed impacts and cyclic "loading"—the push and pull of hurricane gusts.

The Metro Commission's reaction? Delay, delay, delay.

The latest date for the new safety standards to take effect is Sept. 1, a week after Andrew's second anniversary. But some members of the code committee fear the commission will bow to pressure and stall the deadline once again.

If that happens, says engineer Jose Mitrani, "then it's a joke, a fraud being perpetrated on the people of Dade County."

Some builders have taken the initiative, producing solid, medium-priced homes designed to weather most hurricanes. Others prefer to keep cutting corners, pushing Metro commissioners to help the industry regain control of regulation. Hefty campaign donations help.

Each summer that passes without a new hurricane dims the public's memory, and emboldens commissioners to roll back reforms. Many experts fear that if a Category Four storm slams us this year, the damage will be worse than it was in August 1992.

Mitrani advises home buyers to hire their own experts to make sure the construction is sound. The alternative is to entrust your family's safety to politicians concerned mostly with pleasing big campaign contributors.

It would be inexcusable if the dire post-Andrew warnings are "put on a shelf and forgotten." Apparently the only event that will stop that from happening is another terrible storm.