We Will Rebuild!

After Hurricane Andrew swept through South Florida on the morning of August 24, 1992, members of the community responded with more than $27 million in donations, grants and gifts to help their neighbors rebuild. "We Will Rebuild" was formed to administer those funds and ensure that they reached into every corner of the County. In this report, published a year after the storm, the people of South Florida learned just what their money accomplished.

"When Dade County awoke from the nightmare of Hurricane Andrew, it found a completely different world. Unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who was carried by a wind storm to a land of fantasy and beauty, the people of South Dade found themselves in a real and ugly world of devastation and destruction. Most were without electricity. There was no drinking water, food, police protection or telephones. And with more than 75,000 homes destroyed or badly damaged, nearly 200,000 people faced the new day without shelter...."