History of Florida
Hurricane Andrew in August 1992 struck Homestead, just south of Miami, as a Category 5 hurricane, leaving forty people dead, 100,000 homes damaged or destroyed, more than a million people left without electricity, and damages of $20–30 billion. Much of South Florida's sensitive vegetation was severely damaged. The region had not seen a storm of such power in decades. Besides heavy property damage, the hurricane nearly destroyed the region's insurance industry.
Miami-Dade County, Florida
The third-costliest natural disaster to occur in the United States was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Miami in the early morning of Monday, August 24, 1992. It struck the southern part of the county from due east, south of Miami and very near Homestead, Kendall, and Cutler Ridge (now the Town of Cutler Bay). Damages numbered over US$25 billion in the county alone, and recovery has taken years in these areas where the destruction was greatest. This was the costliest natural disaster in US history until Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf region in 2005.
On November 13, 1997, voters changed the name of the county from "Dade" to "Miami-Dade" to acknowledge the international name recognition of Miami. Voters were acting pursuant to home rule powers granted to Dade County, including the ability to change the name of the county without the consent of the Florida Legislature. The change in name also addressed a source of public dissatisfaction with the name "Dade" which was chosen to honor Francis L. Dade, who had been killed in the Dade Massacre in the 1830s. The massacre did not occur in South Florida, but in the west central part of the state, in present-day Sumter County, near Bushnell. There is also a Dade City, which is closer to the site of the massacre.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which is land and (21.9%) is water. It is the third-largest county in Florida by land area and second-largest by total area. Most of the water is in the Biscayne Bay, with another significant portion in the adjacent Atlantic Ocean.