Univision: Andrew, Irma, and The Deuce

As Hurricane Irma nears, Univision looks back to when the National Guard shutdown Mac's Club Deuce after Andrew in 1992. The costliest hurricane to date (until Katrina), Andrew devastated Key Biscayne, Coral Gables, and Kendall leveled, left South Beach flooded and without electricity. Nevertheless, our fearless leader, Mac Klein, opened The Deuce the following day. Locals swarmed for a drink as they celebrated surviving what would go down in history as the second most intense hurricane to hit Florida. As the community of Deucers gathered together and day turned into night, Mac kept the doors open well past curfew. It wasn't until the National Guard came in and cleared everyone out that Mac closed. This time Mac's beloved wife Mary is in charge now and will follow the direction of the City of Miami Beach and close the doors at 7:00p.m. tonight ahead of Irma's landfall. Drinks will be poured and plentiful until then and as always, we'll see you after the storm.

Read more from Univsion en Español. Scroll for translation.

This is the story of Mac’s Club Deuce, the bar that the police had to evacuate after

Hurricane Andrew.

Founded in 1964, the iconic bar is still open, and 25 years after that incident following the

hurricane that devastated Florida, it remains standing to face Irma, although this time it will

heed the authorities and will only open until it is legal to operate. Its doors will close this Friday

at 7 p.m.

Founded in 1964, Mac's Club Deuce Bar went down in history not only for being one of the

oldest in Miami, but also because after Hurricane Andrew passed through, it reopened its

doors and was filled with revelers.

On Monday, August 24, 1992, when the residents of Miami and all of South Florida woke up to

a sky that was barely beginning to brighten, they were confronted with the devastation that had

left Key Biscayne, Coral Gables, and Kendall almost completely destroyed after the 140-mile-

per-hour winds brought by Hurricane Andrew (some miracle had caused the 150-mile-per-hour

winds to subside somewhat).

In Miami Beach, one of the areas that had been designated as most vulnerable, there were

indeed some floods and a few streets blocked by fallen trees. But amidst the somewhat

damaged Art Deco landscape and the damp pastel colors of the buildings, the iconic Mac's

Club Deuce bar, located at 222 Fourteenth St., seemed to have survived the catastrophe

unscathed.

Founded in 1964 by Mac Klein, the iconic bar boasted of never closing, operating 21 out of 24

hours a day, and not even having a lock on the door. “Whenever there’s been a hurricane,

we’ve had one of our bouncers sleep by the door,” a humorous anecdote from a Miami New

Times article about the place recounts. The traffic lights hanging precariously, the tangled

electrical wires in the streets, and the debris that made the urban landscape unrecognizable

weren't going to stop the old man from opening his bar. He didn't know it then, but his

intuition, his audacity, was right: on Tuesday, despite the devastation of Hurricane Andrew, the

bar would be packed, just like in its heyday.

While the United States was grappling with what would become the costliest tragedy in its

history (later surpassed only by Katrina), and while some older residents could only recall the

devastation wrought by the series of hurricanes that had battered the entire country in 1964,

younger people were heading to Mac's Club Deuce, perhaps in search of the last surviving

cigarette in Miami.

Without electricity, of course, and with almost everything in the Miami Beach area closed (or

rather, devastated), the bar filled up, and the crowd became so boisterous that even the

National Guard had to intervene. "Around eight o'clock, after sunset, the National Guard came

in with their M-16s strapped to their bodies and started yelling, 'Everyone in this bar is in

violation of the curfew,'" one of the bar's employees told the Miami New Times, adding that

people fled in such a panic that they left behind their wallets and money.

Mac's Club Deuce is still standing 25 years later, and although its founder passed away a

couple of years ago at the age of 101, the place remains a landmark in the city and still

maintains a certain rebellious spirit. While most establishments in the area are closed, boarded

up with hurricane shutters, this Friday—just one day before Irma finally makes landfall in Florida

—it will be open until 7 p.m. (not until 5 a.m. as usual).

Klein's wife, who has continued to run the establishment, has shown a bit more caution,

however, and has publicly stated that the bar will operate until the authorities tell them to close.

She even used the bar's Twitter account to encourage their followers to stay safe.

It remains to be seen whether, after Irma passes, many people will once again be looking for an

open bar in Miami Beach to collectively celebrate that the storm is finally over. Perhaps Mac's

Club Deuce won't be open this time.