DAMAGE SURVEY OF HURRICANE-ANDREW AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE EYEWALL

A damage map documenting Hurricane Andrew's destructive landfall over southern Florida is presented. Vectors that represent the direction of winds causing damage to trees and structures are shown along with an F-scale rating in order to assess the strength of the near-surface win ds. It is hypothesized that increased surface roughness once the hurri cane made landfall may have contributed to a surface wind enhancement resulting in the strongest winds ever estimated (F3) for a landfall hu rricane. This intense damage occurred primarily during the 'second' pe riod of strong winds associated with the east side of the eyewall. For the first time, a well-defined circulation in the damage pattern by t he second wind was documented. A superposition of radar data from Miam i and Key West on top of the damage map provides the first detailed ex amination of the relationship between the eyewall and the surface flow field as estimated from the damage vectors.