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Hurricane Andrew: 30 years later - watch the Storm Station special here
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BATON ROUGE - Three decades after Hurricane Andrew devastated parts of Louisiana and Florida, WBRZ commemorated the historic storm with "Hurricane Andrew: 30 Years Later."
The half-hour special premiered on Thursday and featured rare footage of the storm taken straight from the WBRZ archives, as well as an inside look at Channel 2's coverage from 30 years ago.
Along with archival footage, the documentary has all-new interviews with longtime WBRZ reporter John Pastorek and now-retired Chief Forecaster Pat Shingleton, who both covered the hurricane at the time.
"After you experience how advanced the technology has brought you to the present day coverage of storms, when you look back on that you think 'how in the world did we get these people through this stuff?'" Shingleton said.
The story began two days before Andrew—now considered one of the 10 strongest and most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history—made landfall in Louisiana. On its way to the Gulf of Mexico, the storm left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and cut off access to water and electricity in south Florida.
Andrew made landfall in Louisiana before dawn on Aug. 26, 1992, and while the effects of the storm would be felt throughout southeast Louisiana, St. Mary Parish would take the bulk of the punishment.
"When you go to Morgan City, and they refer to 'The Hurricane,' they're talking about Andrew. And a lot of times they'll say, 'oh, I remember before The Hurricane. I remember after The Hurricane.' Well, they don't even mention the name Andrew. Everybody just knows it was Hurricane Andrew. Andrew was kind of like Morgan City's Katrina or Baton Rouge's Gustav," Pastorek said.
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