John Zarrella: Andrew's aftermath

CNN's John Zarella

HOMESTEAD, Florida (CNN) -- Exactly 10 years ago Saturday, Hurricane Andrew devastated parts of South Florida and left tens of thousands of people homeless.

CNN Miami Bureau Chief John Zarrella, who covered the frightening hurricane, recalled the storm Saturday and discussed its impact with CNN's Carol Lin.

ZARRELLA: You know, 10 years ago today, we didn't know how amazing it was going to be. It's just recently been upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane -- now they believe sustained winds in Hurricane Andrew were 165 miles an hour, up from 145, and wind gusts may have exceeded 200 miles per hour.

Right about this time at 7 a.m., people down here in Homestead were just able to get out of their homes and assess the damage and see how bad it was. The eye of the hurricane made landfall about 5:05 a.m. ... by Homestead, by the Air Force base, and a place called Black Point Marina.

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It was more devastation than anybody could have imagined, and here today we're in Homestead, which has certainly recovered over the past 10 years. And what they're going to be doing is a Celebration of Kindness today, and that's to give thanks to those who helped.

This is Harris Field, and you can see there's lots of trees here right now. But 10 years ago there was nothing here. It was completely leveled. All of what you see, the foliage, the trees, has all been replanted in the last 10 years. It was all laid waste by Hurricane Andrew.

Harris Field became Tent City. It was a symbol of the recovery effort. It was the focal point of the recovery effort. For five months, some 10,000 people called Harris Field their home. They were among the 250,000 people who lost their homes, had to evacuate, 126,000 homes destroyed by Hurricane Andrew.

You can see Harris Field again -- it's completely redone from what it looked like 10 years ago.

Now, there's a lot of people out there who have -- most people have never experienced the power of a major hurricane. They really don't know what it's like. It's a real concern for hurricane forecasters.

Again, all day today here in Homestead, a Celebration of Kindness to give thanks to the people who helped them out. The fireworks celebration, concerts, a street festival -- it is really a celebration of life.

LIN: John, did the community entirely rebuild? I mean, is it as it was 10 years ago before the hurricane hit?

ZARRELLA: No, not at all. There have been tremendous changes from a social demographic point of view. Fifty-seven thousand people left South Dade County. Many of them were the middle class. Homestead is now predominantly Mexican-American. In fact, research has shown that a major disaster, like an Andrew, can hasten or accelerate social change which was already in the works, one of the things that happened here.

You've had other pockets of communities that did not recover at all. We were in one yesterday, Naranja Lakes. Areas that recovered best tended to have the strongest community leadership. Other areas are still, in some regard, exactly how Andrew left them 10 years ago,