HURRICANE ANDREW MAY HAVE BEEN THE MOST costly natural disaster in U.S. history, but it has triggered a modern American gold rush. Carpenters and contractors from as far away as Alaska are heading south to Florida to mine a $20 billion bonanza in reconstruction and cleanup work. "I traded in my high heels for steel toes ((construction shoes)) and headed down here a few days after the storm," said Roberta Heiberg, an estimator for an Arlington, Virginia, contracting firm. She got a Florida contractor's license in one day, advertised with a sign in her Holiday Inn window and made her first...
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