Hurricane Andrew & Weeks
As a USAF captain I was dispatched to Florida as part of Hurricane Andrew recovery. As a public affairs officer, I was allowed to “borrow” a HH-60 helicopter (with crew) to show media the area and the military recovery efforts.
The helicopters were temporarily based out of Tamiami (Sp?) which was then the site of Weeks museum.
We got there just as a crane was lifting the steel roof joists off the ground. Amazingly, damage was somewhat limited by the fact they had snapped in the middle creating a “M” shape. Most planes seemed to have been parked on either side of the building’s centerline and avided a lot of damage. As I recall, a Corsair wing was nicked, and the J2F-6 Duck and A-26 Invader received some fairly minor damage (I can say “fairly minor” because I didn’t have to fix it or pay for it!!!). The only total loss I saw was a Boeing P-12 wrapped up into a ball..it was so badly mangled I had to ask waht it was.
However, his B-17 was blown a half a mile down the field and his Ford Tri-Motor was severely damaged when the hanger it was parked in at Homestead AFB (for safekeeping!!) collapsed. I can’t speak for Mr. Weeks but from what I saw the majority of his collection wasn’t badly damaged, so I can’t say how long it took him to recover from the storm.
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