UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 5, Page 3                                
October 1, 1992                                                
In Andrew's wake; WXDR engineer takes supplies to friends in Florida    
                                                               
     When Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in late August, cities     
across the nation tuned their televisions to CNN for a look at the   
carnage. With friends near the scene of the destruction, University  
employee Rich McGuire decided to make the long journey southward to  
see for himself-and to be with his friends.                          
     McGuire, assistant manager and chief engineer of campus radio   
station WXDR, said he was on the phone with Chris, a friend of his   
since high school.  They talked several times during the night of the
storm as increasingly violent winds gave Floridians a hint of what was        
to come.                                                             
     "He was using a cellular phone, because he knew that when the   
storm really hit Florida Power & Light would get knocked out," McGuire        
said.                                                                
     As Chris and his wife prepared for the onslaught-having fled    
their home in favor of a steel-reinforced building in the east coast 
town of Dania- McGuire assisted by instructing his friend via phone on        
the operation of a large generator.                                  
     "The noise was possibly the most frightening part of it," McGuire  
said. "It was just relentless."                                      
     Around 3 a.m., after his friends had barricaded a delivery bay's
door with a forklift,  McGuire said he hung up the phone on their last        
telephone conversation. By then, the group was tired enough to sleep 
through the hurricane, and McGuire was left to wonder how they were  
faring.                                                              
     Another phone call the next day put McGuire's mind to rest about
the safety of his friends.                                           
     "They got through it with no problems," he said.  But still     
McGuire wanted to do more. So, with extra rolls of toilet paper on   
board, he left for Florida in his 32-foot RV, a 1978 Dodge dubbed "Big        
Bus." It took 26 hours to reach his destination in the southern part 
of the Sunshine State.                                               
     "As you traveled from Ft. Lauderdale toward Miami, you could see   
moderate to huge piles of garbage everywhere," he said. "There were no        
power poles left standing, and very few trees. The trees that were   
still in the ground had no leaves."                                  
     Traffic on the interstate and other major roads was horrendous, 
McGuire recalled. Some of the vehicles were military and             
rescue-related, but many appeared to be sightseers.                  
     "The police were stopping everyone in some areas close to       
Homestead," he said. People without business in the region were told 
to turn around and "head north."                                     
     As it turned out, McGuire said, his friends' home-about 15 miles
to the north of the building they had stayed in throughout the       
hurricane-was spared, suffering only minor damage to a few shingles  
and the loss of all the foliage in the yard.                         
     "They were lucky and they knew it," he said. "That was one of the  
most common expressions, "Boy, we were lucky."                       
     Also overheard around Broward and Dade counties were, "Next time
we're getting out of here," McGuire said.                            
     Two days after he arrived, as relief efforts were just getting  
off the ground in the devastated Homestead area, McGuire and his     
friends finished the relatively minor task of cutting up broken tree 
limbs that littered local yards and streets.                         
     With much of their work done, McGuire said they helped move a   
less fortunate friend, who had lost his home, to Miami, where he would        
live with another lucky survivor.                                    
     After a week and a half, and with the start of school           
approaching, McGuire headed north. "When I left, people were still in
denial," he said. "There were families guarding heaps of junk that   
used to be their homes. Many of them resisted moving, even though the
counties had begun condemning their property. It was sad, they were  
remembering what was there just days before, but it was all gone."   
                                        -Stephen Steenkamer