Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: Recovery Will Take Years

WASHINGTON, DC — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio warned Thursday that the recovery effort from Hurricane Michael will take years and compared the devastation to Florida's Hurricane Andrew, which struck South Florida in 1992.

That storm wrought devastation unlike any other storm that had come ashore in South Florida in the two decades before its arrival on Aug. 24, 1992 and still holds the dubious distinction of being the only Category 5 hurricane to strike a major metropolitan area in the United States.

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"This is a multi-year recovery effort," Rubio said in an interview with CNN. "We’ve got to rebuild the electric grid. This is not restoring power. From what I’m hearing this morning, they have to rebuild the electric grid based on some damage that’s been described to me."

Florida's two-term Republican senator said that there was a population shift after Andrew that is still felt today more than 25 years later.

"It’s not just sort of property damage. It’s economic damage," Rubio explained. "This is the lifeblood of the economies of the communities. It’s going to be awhile before those industries are going to be producing revenues and jobs. What happened after Andrew is people moved. I mean they just left."

In the case of Hurricane Andrew, he said that many people moved north to Broward County and never returned.

"It’s taken 20-some-odd years for South Dade to recover. I just hope that’s not the case here," Rubio said.

He described Mexico Beach as a "hidden gem" and compared it to old Florida.

"That's tough to rebuild," he acknowledged. "It takes time to bring that back up."

Photo courtesy U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's office