Hurricanes are notoriously capricious. Andrew was a compact system. A little larger system, or one making landfall just a few nautical miles further to the north, would have been catastrophic for heavily populated, highly commercialized and no less vulnerable areas to the north. That area includes downtown Miami, Miami Beach, Key Biscayne and Fort Lauderdale. Andrew also left the highly vulnerable New Orleans region relatively Andrew moved nearly due westward when over land and crossed the extreme southern portion of the Florida peninsula in about four hours. Although the hurricane weakened about one category on the during the transit over land, and the press