Yes, I'm a native Floridian. Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale during the BEST years of Spring Break
Florida builders were selling crap home in South Florida for years. The home I grew up in was built by an architect back in the early '50s. The thing was a freakin' bomb shelter. The stuff that was built in the '70s and '80s was just plain criminal. But they met the building codes at the time (or they bribed the inspectors). After Andrew, Dade County came up with their own much more stricter codes. It's only been a few years (2002) since the State enacted a state-wide building code that takes into account hurricane reinforcement. It's still not as strong as the Dade code. That means there's a LOT of homes down here that will suffer substantial damage if another major storm hits a large city.
The homes that were built in South Florida that failed during Andrew had no reinforcement. They were just simple block construction with no ties, no rebar and no down-pours around the openings (doors & windows). They either simply collapsed or the truss work fell over like dominoes.
I'm used to hurricanes. Part of life here. Stock up on water, food and beer
And after the crap that happened after Andrew, stock up on ammo.
I'm just sick of hearing idiots (like Brian Norcross) who says stupid things on TV like, "hunker down".
http://cbs4.com/bios/local_bio_053140656/
The news weather people here are just plain idiots. It's easy to get people excited in Florida since most of the people here aren't from Florida. They see the images of destroyed mobile homes, poorly built homes and shacks that were destroyed during storms since that's the first place the newscaster go after a storm.