A little relief for some: power, cash, water, mail
But frustrations remain for those hardest hit: victims who lost both their homes and jobs. The recovery is "way worse than the hurricane," one says.
By STEPHEN NOHLGREN, CHASE SQUIRES, WILL VAN SANT and DAN DeWITT
Published August 18, 2004
PUNTA GORDA - Day Four.
When disaster strikes, authorities figure people usually can fend for themselves for about three days. No electricity, no phones, homes in shambles, peanut butter with canned peaches on paper plates.
"We tell the public, "Give us three days,"' Charlotte County emergency management director Wayne Sallade said. "You make it three days, we'll push the world out to you on Day Four."
That deadline was put to the test Tuesday as Hurricane Charley rescue efforts picked up pace.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued $2-million in payments to 1,070 disaster victims. That's a small portion of the 35,000 people who have applied for relief, but FEMA director Michael Brown pledged that more checks were on the way.
Power was restored to 200,000 residents around the state; about 500,000 remained in the dark.
State officials raised Charley's death toll from 18 to 20, adding an 86-year-old man who fell and died at a Polk County motel and a Lee County man poisoned by carbon monoxide while powering his home with a generator. Not included were three people who died Monday night when two Cadillacs collided at a Charlotte County intersection where the traffic signal was not working.
Water service has been restored to all Charlotte County utilities customers, about 52,000, but a "boil water" order remained in effect.
U.S. Postal Service officials resumed mail delivery in Punta Gorda, where Charley slammed ashore Friday - at least to areas where postal workers could get through. When Chuck Cantasano brought letters and medicine to the Burnt Store Colony mobile home park, "They broke into a round of applause."
Such numbers and milestones formed grist for weary authorities and swarms of journalists but held little real meaning for thousands of Floridians now coping in the most basic of ways.
Pool worker Michael Muenzberg, 32, lost both his home and, for now, his job. "All the pools around here are shot," he said.
Muenzberg said he, his wife and two children need money for gas and food. "I pretty much lived day to day as it was. We didn't have the nest egg ready."
The Muenzbergs left a state/FEMA disaster center clutching emergency rations of teriyaki beef and pork chops. His family has moved in with friends, bringing along four pit bulls, he said, but "who knows how long it's going to be before we're at each other's throats."
Christian Morales, 23, saw his Port Charlotte home destroyed just after paying $600 rent for the month. He lays tile for a living, and his wife works in a nursing home, but both of their offices were damaged by the storm, leaving them without a paycheck.
On Tuesday, he held his 1-year-old son while his wife waited in the unemployment line.
"This is the worst," Morales said, "This is way worse than the hurricane."
Long lines form for federal aid
Emergency manager Sallade said he hoped grueling conditions might be mitigated by the public aid, which grows every day.
Until Monday, food and supplies were distributed mostly through central locations. On Tuesday, Sallade said, emergency workers began to deliver ice, water, and food to shut-ins. Public transportation also began offering rides to shelters for anyone who could not get there on their own.
FEMA, with 1,000 workers now in Florida, established telephone banks at aid stations in Port Charlotte and Fort Myers so people without phones could call in their claims.
The government won't just hand money out pell-mell, FEMA chief Brown emphasized.
"We have a moral and fiduciary obligation to give this money to those who need it and meet the criteria so that we can protect the taxpayers," Brown said. "This is your money and my money."
Most monetary aid so far is for emergency housing assistance, including money for hotels, mobile homes and RVs. Federal officials also promise to set up emergency housing for 10,000 people.
On Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced up to $10-million in grants for Head Start and Early Head Start centers, $1-million for hospitals in DeSoto and Osceola counties and $200,000 to help provide meals, shelter and services to the elderly.
In sweltering afternoon heat, dozens of laborers spread tar and began replacing shingles on the damaged roof of the three-story Charlotte Regional Medical Center in downtown Punta Gorda. Members of the National Guard, armed with machine guns, kept watch.
Until the hospital can open, FEMA operates a makeshift emergency room in a parking lot across the street, where a cluster of tan tents is outfitted with medical supplies, air conditioning and even a pair of showers. More than 350 people had been treated by Tuesday afternoon, officials said, for everything from car accident injuries to heat exhaustion.
Meanwhile, tempers are growing short.
Charlotte sheriff's deputies arrested 16 people overnight on an assortment of domestic violence and battery charges as neighbors and couples continued to live in damaged homes without electricity.
The heat index - a factor of heat and humidity - reached 105 degrees. Officials said they could not even offer a timeline for when electric service and air conditioning would be restored.
Cost to rebuild homes could be prohibitive
Sallade said homes built in the past two years survived remarkably well, probably because of better building codes enacted after Hurricane Andrew. The bad news, said John Bradley, general manager at the 1,100-home Maple Leaf mobile home park, is that residents may not be able to afford replacements for homes that were destroyed.
A mobile home rated to survive the state's 130-mph threshold can cost $140,000, Bradley said. Insurance adjuster Mike Decorte, who toured the park, said many of the homes are insured for only $25,000 to $50,000.
To the north, Gov. Jeb Bush toured Osceola and Polk counties to reassure people the state had not forgotten them while providing aid to Charlotte.
Since grievances centered mostly on electricity, Bush emphasized that "I know for a fact the utility companies are bustin'."
Of the hardest-hit counties with power outages, officials are expecting Highlands and Polk will have full power restored by Sunday, Hardee County on Tuesday, but Charlotte and DeSoto counties will be at least another week after that.
Stephanie Popielarczyk pronounced Bush's suggestion for her problem "wonderful."
Her husband is a disabled Vietnam veteran who relies on an electric wheelchair, she told Bush. Without power, he had no way to recharge it.
"I'd just go to a Publix and ask if you could plug it in there," Bush told her.
Attorney General Charlie Crist filed civil complaints for price gouging and unfair trade practices against a Days Inn in West Palm Beach and the Crossroads Motor Lodge in Lakeland for allegedly jacking up room rates.
The Days Inn advertised $39.99 on a billboard but asked for $109 and $119 a room, Crist said. The Crossroads advertised Friday at $44.79, including taxes and fees, but charged an 85-year-old woman with a reservation $61.27.
More than 100 state investigators are in the field, and most of the initial complaints are about lodging rates.
Federal and state officials continued to distribute supplies flown into an emergency depot at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. They are then trucked to all affected counties, except Charlotte, which has its own supply post.
From 2 p.m. Monday to 2 p.m. Tuesday, the numbers from Lakeland were: 24 trucks of ice, 75 trucks of water, 26,712 premade meals, 2,916 cots, 52 generators, 622 sleeping bags, 208 tents, three forklifts, 10 cases of bug spray and 4,578 blankets.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shifted part of their relief hub to Tampa International Airport because some of the planes bringing in water were too big to land at Linder Regional. The planes began airlifting 20 semitrailer loads of water a day from TIA.
Barry Vorse, a spokesman for the Corps, said that beginning Tuesday an armada of aircraft - including the world's largest - would be airlifting 20 semitrailer loads of water daily for five days, a total of nearly half a million gallons, into TIA for distribution to storm-wrecked areas.
"The bulk of the relief operations, National Guard, emergency response, forestry and some Army Corps operations, will stay in Lakeland," Vorse said. "But some of the planes bringing in water needed a larger field."
At the national Hurricane Center in Miami, director Max Mayfield said he was pleased at how well the service had predicted Charley's course. For several days, forecasters had drawn a skinny line on maps that showed Charley landing in Tampa Bay. But the Charlotte Harbor area was well within the cone of danger outlined on tracks, Mayfield said.
Maxfield said the forecast given 24 hours before landfall had an error of 45 miles, better than the 10-year average of 87 miles.
"I don't want to sound like I'm bragging," Mayfield said. "If there's anything to be learned from this, it's what we've said countless times: Don't focus on the skinny line."
One surprise was Charley's small core of top winds - possibly as narrow as 5 miles wide - which Mayfield called "unprecedented." Though winds hit 145 miles per hour at landfall, the small core substantially decreased the storm surge, Mayfield said.
Losses would have been far greater if Charley had followed the skinny line north, Maxfield said. For any Tampa Bay residents annoyed by the evacuation, he said: "I'd rather have people mad at me than dead."
Staff writers Christopher Goffard, Jean Heller, Jamie Thompson, Joni James and Abbie VanSickle contributed to this report.
