August 31, 1992

Specter of the Storm Damage from Hurricane Andrew to natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico will cut production for several weeks, until repairs are completed. Prices for gas contracts rose sharply on Friday, and analysts predicted that customers in the Northeast and Midwest would see bigger heating bills this winter. In addition, some analysts said Andrew's ravages may have ended a long depression in the natural gas market. [ Page D1. ] Top executives of large insurance companies toured Florida municipalities where almost all property had become a casualty of the hurricane. Several said the damage was more intense than anything they had ever seen, and the faces of corporate leaders from Allstate, State Farm, Prudential, Aetna and other companies turned expressionless at the destruction. [ D1. ]

Against the low drone of an air-conditioner at a roadside inn near Scranton, a dozen campaign workers sat briefing Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, on how a certain woman was threatening his bid for re-election. One by one, they gave their reports, about how Republican women still empathized with her, about how everyone would have to work hard to convince people, given the situation, that Mr. Specter supported women's issues and how, in fact, some people were beginning to come around.

Even by his own eccentric standards, the reclusive American chess genius Bobby Fischer has come up with something seriously weird in agreeing to make a comeback against his old rival Boris Spassky at this coastal resort just 70 miles from the carnage of the Balkan war. Defying United States Government threats of stiff fines or even long imprisonment for breaking the current United Nations sanctions on Yugoslavia, Mr. Fischer has holed up in a medieval fort-turned-hotel overlooking the clear waters of the Adriatic. His heavily guarded suite, No. 118, is known as Villa Sophia because Sophia Loren once stayed here.

Last year, just after turning 39, that awkward age when most tennis superstars have long since been shunted off to the country club to give lessons to suburbia's weekend warriors, Jimmy Connors went on a warpath of his own beneath the singular spotlight of the United States Open. He didn't simply compete at the U.S.T.A. National Tennis Center in Queens; he commandeered the joint.

Top insurance executives flew over communities flattened by Hurricane Andrew, knocked on the doors of policyholders and said later that the damage was the most intense they had ever seen. In the Gulf of Mexico, the storm damaged drilling platforms and rigs and disrupted supplies of natural gas; prices have already started to climb.

Top executives of the nation's largest insurance companies toured municipalities today where almost all property had become a casualty of Hurricane Andrew, and several said the damage was more intense than anything they had ever seen. "At points, it looks like a nuclear detonation, where the buildings just exploded," said Joe House, a regional vice president of the USAA Property and Casualty Group, a company that insures homes and autos.

As detectives hunt for the gunmen behind last week's ferocious firefight outside a Bronx grocery, law-enforcement specialists say it represents crime's latest calling card on the streets of New York City: spray-shooting that indiscriminately targets bystanders as well as intended victims. In many ways, they say, it is more alarming than other surges of criminal violence, a volatile mix of heavy armament, drug rivalries, abject poverty and shadowy ethnic gangs that one criminologist says summons up the specter of overseas war zones.

This United States Senate campaign is not following Robert Abrams's original script. When he announced 19 months ago that he would run for Senator, Mr. Abrams, the State Attorney General, cast himself as the presumptive favorite and the man his party should quickly rally around as the best candidate to take on the Republican incumbent, Alfonse M. D'Amato. The first major figure to enter the race, he released a slew of early endorsements and scheduled dozens of fund-raisers, all in an obvious bid to scare off potential Democratic opponents.

It was the trees that so many people spoke of. In the midst of the devastation, the privations and the pain, the people of Homestead last week sometimes stopped, mid-conversation, and remarked on a pine tree that had grown with them, an acacia that was a benchmark for their lives, a towering mangrove that was a testament to their own struggles, achievements and now loss.

With their opening game of the season against the San Francisco 49ers just seven days away, the Giants have two major problems -- offense and defense. The defense was embarrassingly porous in Saturday night's 24-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, but at least it should improve this week. When the late-signing Erik Howard and Carl Banks are activated, Howard should clog the middle and Banks should be able to shed tight ends trying to set up sweeps, at least enough to make a difference.

As the dollar plunged to record lows last week, most corporate foreign exchange managers stayed up half the night, watching the dull glow of numbers across their computer screens. But not David Fiedler, the director of foreign exchange planning at the Eastman Kodak Company. He calmly let his 8-year-old son use his monitor at home to check the latest baseball scores, then he got a full night's sleep. Blase? No, it's just that Mr. Fiedler has Kodak's risks from the dollar's jumps and jiggles under enviable control.

This is why the Mets signed Bobby Bonilla. This is why he gets the big dollars. Ninth inning, two outs, two runs down, two runners on base. This is when, in a perfect world, Bobby Bonilla is supposed to come to the plate. And hit a homer. And win the game. For the Bobby Bonillas of this world, that is what is expected. That's the way life is. Most of this year, though, that kind of thing didn't happen. Most of this year, nothing has happened the way the Mets planned. Yesterday, though, the magic came back.