I'm Rufus Griskym, and this is the next big idea.

Today, in the spirit of the season, togetherness.

Not just a pleasant thing to experience, but as the foundation for national public policy.

The summer of 1992 was an unusually quiet hurricane season in southern Florida.

Month after month without so much as a tropical storm.

But as forecasters like to say, it only takes one to ruin your year.

Hurricane Andrew now nears the shore of Southeast Florida at this hour.

The center of the hurricane is located about 40 miles due east of Miami.

Hurricane Andrew is supposed to hit Central Florida, but then unexpectedly, it takes a different track.

The storm barrels toward the southern tip of the state, where a 15-year-old boy and his family and thousands like them are taking shelter in their homes.

The storm rages through the night. The teenager and his family are among the lucky ones. They all survive.

But when they leave their house in the morning, their neighborhood looks like a war zone.

It's almost unbelievable to watch as we see entire homes and communities leveled.

There's nothing but devastation for miles around.

Hundreds of houses destroyed, trees uprooted, power lines down, telephone poles snapped like toothpicks.

A mile inland from the ocean, the boy finds crabs blown across the pavement and sees fish hanging from the trees.

The survivors are left without electricity at the height of a steamy Florida summer.

No running water, just a few days worth of food, and no clear way forward.

But then something happens. Something even more surprising than Hurricane Andrew's sudden change in direction.

We just came down with a load of stuff. This is our second trip down.

And wherever we go, people come running after us for water.

This is like an outpouring of generosity.

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