were as a volunteer attorney. The AmericanrnBar Association is contracted to providernfree legal advice to victims of disasters,rnand when the call for assistancernwent out locally, four hundred of us responded.rnI spent days under tents setrnup by the U. S. Army giving pro bono legalrnhelp. Most of my work involvedrnlandlord-tenant law; half of my clientsrnwere landlords trying to determine theirrnresponsibilities, the other half were tenantsrntrying to determine the same thing.rnThe strangest legal question I handledrnwas from a fellow who had hotwiredrnhis neighbor’s automobile. Hernwas using it and wondering about thernlegal consequences. He also wanted tornknow if he could buy the car from itsrnowner. Now, auto theft is a seriousrnfelony, hi Miami you might actually getrnincarcerated for six months or more, ifrnyou do it enough times. The neighbor’srnhouse was utterly destroyed, and he hadrnleft his car behind. My “client” hadrnbeen going to a local hospital to get arnfracture reset and taking along a differentrnneighbor for something else, whenrnhis car caught a branch that ripped outrnits tail pipe and gas tank. The two literallyrnlimped back home and then hotwiredrnthe neighbor’s car. Since then thernfellow had been using it to shuttlernaround for ice, medicine, and food. Hernhad told the auto owner’s son of thisrnand was informed that the dad wouldrnbe back in two weeks.rn1 drafted a note for him to offer tornbuy the car. I remarked that if thesernfacts were true, he ran little risk of prosecution.rnI asked him where he was goingrnnow. I had told him to get to the medicalrnstation down the road to take carernof the hatchet wound to his hand.rn(Don’t ask.) He promised he would getrnto the aid station, but he was on his wayrnnorth to Kendall to find a working carrnwash. He wanted to return the carrnclean!rnDown on South Dixie Highway therernis a tourist attraction, the Monkey Jungle.rnPeople go around in screened-overrnpaths, while monkeys roam about freely.rnHurricane Andrew destroyed the place,rnwhereupon the monkeys fled into thernsurrounding area.rnSouth Dade County is farm country.rnA lady who owns a farm and nurseryrnthere has a business selling chutney,rncanned fruits, preserves, and the like.rnHer place was badly damaged. As shernput it to the press, the winds came andrnflattened everything. Then it was darkrnand silent. Power was out, phone linesrndown. A week passed with no changernin the situation. Then the monkeys,rnwild with hunger, attacked her home.rnThey fell upon the walls, roof, and windows.rnScreaming and pillaging the remnantsrnof her adjacent shop, they torernthrough broken shelves and jars to getrnat the food. She was terrified by the experience,rnbut a sense of the ludierousnessrnof the whole incident never left her.rnIt was some kind of horrible, terrifyingrncomedy.rnThe differences between the Miamirnof today and the one that experiencedrnthe hurricanes of the 1960’s are depressingrnto contemplate. We lost powerrnthen, but not civilization. In 1964, myrnmother, sister, and I moved into our Miamirnhome the very day Hurricane Cleornhit. We had no electricity for 17 days.rnWe lined up for ice and gasoline. Werncooked with my grandparents’ gas stove.rnWe bathed at a friend’s house that had arngas water heater. Though I was only sevenrnyears old, I have a good memory forrntimes past and I don’t recall any massivernlooting going on. Hurricane Andrewrnblew through a city different fromrnthe one I grew up in. Gone was a respectrnfor property. Gone was a fear ofrnarrest or of being shot for looting. Notrngone, exactly, but certainly weakenedrnwas a notion of self-sufficiency. Thoughrnmuch more prosperous than twentyrnyears ago, the people of Miami are spirituallyrnimpoverished and downrightrnhelpless.rnOn the night of the storm, a localrntelevision weatherman, Brian Norcross,rnmade a blunt point on the air. He said,rn”Folks, in a few hours, firefighters andrnpolice will be pulled off the streets.rnNothing will be working very well forrnmany weeks. You are going to be onrnyour own. Help will not be a phone callrnaway.” What is significant is not thernmessage itself, but that the message hadrnto be given at all. The message is onernthat conservatives—no, that anybodyrnwith sense—would know and understand.rnBut this time, it had to be given.rnAnd explained. And repeated. And reexplained.rnAnd translated into Spanish,rnGreole, and something less than thernQueen’s English. The Miami devastatedrnby Hurricane Andrew was not thernMiami that had persevered the stormsrnof yesteryear.rnAlan R. Turin is an attorney in privaternpractice.rnLetter FromrnPuerto Ricornby Geoffrey WagnerrnAn Artful SuccessrnHalf a century ago Puerto Rico was thernpoorest country in the West, includingrnHaiti. At that time I was living penuriouslyrnin what was to become New York’srnSpanish Harlem, then the preserve ofrnItalian immigrants. This Little Italy ofrnthe Upper East Side was virtually ruledrnby the colorful communist CongressmanrnVito Marcantonio, my next-doorrnneighbor. From here I was able to monitorrnthe bias and bigotry directed againstrnthe incoming Puerto Ricans by the flyby-rnnight mayors of the period—”FugitivernBill” O’Dwyer (who coined thernterm “milk-bottle thieves” to describernthe new immigrants) and Vincent Impellitterirn—as well as the local bank managers,rnnumbers-racket “civics clubs,” andrnstreet-side vendors. All this has alteredrnfor the better, excepting perhaps the fishrnmarkets, then located under the picturesquernold El.rnIn Puerto Rico Hispanics have nowrncreated, out of the highest populationrndensity in the Caribbean and few naturalrnresources, a model community (forrnthe area) with a standard of living wayrnabove that of neighboring countries.rnThe immaculate new American Airlinesrnhub created in the tatty old Luis MuiiozrnMarin Airport is outstanding testimonyrnto investor confidence. For Puerto Ricornhas not gone to sleep on the laurels ofrntourism, with all its ancillary attractionsrn—the vast resort hotels of Condadornand Isia Verde, the famous phosphorescentrnbay at Parguera, the Camuy cavernpark, the multiple casinos; it has createdrna back-up manufacturing infrastructurernwhose share of per-capita gross domesticrnproduct ranks higher than any on mainlandrnAmerica, let alone that of adjacentrnJamaica, lagging ten times behind andrnrepeatedly forced into devaluations.rnThis infrastructure has provided arnbuffer against the fragility of thosernCaribbean economies that rely so heavily,rnoften uniquely, on that fickle jaderncalled tourism. Once prosperous Barbados,rnfor instance, is today swallowingrnthe kill-or-cure medicine of the IMF,rn36/CHRONICLESrnrnrn