Mr. Heyer, a senior investigator for the Houston-based Engineering and Fire Investigators, after nearly 20 years in the business and visits to the aftermath of 19 hurricanes, said he has seen a lot of damage and knows one thing: strict building codes and even stricter enforcement work.

His post Charley inspection has found that recent building requirements have paid off. With Hurricane Charley, those structures built after code revisions in the wake of Hurriciane Andrew withstood the damage much better, Mr. Heyer said.

Mr. Heyer's focus has been residential structures such as condominiums up to three stories and commercial buildings.

Mr. Heyer has been evaluating the Hurricane Charley damage ever since the storm swept through Florida on Aug 13, causing the most insured damage to the state since Hurricane Andrew's visit 12 years earlier.

The Property Claims Service unit of the Insurance Services Office has pegged the actual insured loss figure at $6.8 billion.

"We are seeing mainly issues of construction with the buildings that are older. These were built in the ?70s and ?80s, and we are seeing a lot of damage to roofs and the like," Mr. Heyer said.

In Orlando, an inland city that normally does not experience much hurricane damage, Mr. Heyer inspected a commercial building from the 1950s that suffered major roof damage.

For Mr. Meyer and others in his profession, Hurricane Andrew, with its winds of 150 mph, now classed as a Category 5 storm, will always be the touchstone by which to measure damage.

"That was just total devastation. There is not much you can do when winds reach 150 mph," he recalled.