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Storming across Florida

PALM BEACH: A WHOLE NEW LANDSCAPE

On this world-famous island of the rich and sophisticated, things aren't supposed to be out of place. Lawns and trees are meticulously manicured, like the women who shop on Worth Avenue. Stores display expensive wares.

But Sunday afternoon, Palm Beach was a mess.

Architect Gene Fagan, one of more than 100 residents who refused to evacuate, took a bicycle ride Sunday and surveyed the damage from Hurricane Frances.

"People are going to be shocked when they come back and see this," said Fagan, 47. "I mean, just look. All the landscaping is gone."

Frances lashed the state Sunday, knocking out power to 3.1-million people, shredding roofs and uprooting trees. But initial reports didn't rival the deaths and estimated $7.4-billion in insured damage caused by Hurricane Charley three weeks ago.

Fagan and many others in Frances' path agreed on one observation:

It could have been a lot worse.

Peirce and Judy Braun walked outside of their home for the first time in hours.

Their neighbors' dock was demolished. The gazebo that used to sit at the end of the dock was in a nearby restaurant parking lot.

The couple, who live across the street from the Indian River, stayed in their 75-year-old home for the duration of the storm.

All around them, trees, shrubs and roofs lay in piles along Indian River Drive. The entire northbound lane of Indian River Drive had been washed away. Now it is just jagged asphalt where cars once rolled.

But the Braun's home came through the storm unscathed.

"It's like a rock," said Peirce Braun.

The Brauns have lived in the home for 30 years. It has weathered many storms.

"It's made out of Dade County pine," he said.

At 3:40 p.m. Sunday, another nasty squall soaked another battered city. And Joyce Haldeman died. She was 69.

It was not an unexpected death. She suffered from cancer and was in hospice care. She was in pain.

The unexpected part was where she died, surrounded by friends she didn't know until Hurricane Frances forced her into St. Lucie County's special-needs shelter, the place where she would spend the last four days of her life while a storm lurked offshore.

Her sister, Joan LiCalzi, was by her side at the end. She held her hand.

A woman Haldeman had never met, Maureen Bensen of Long Island, N.Y., placed a small silver cross on her chest moments before she died.

"The people here gave their hearts to her," LiCalzi said, sharing her thoughts less than two hours after her sister's death. "I never knew these people. But they've cried with me, they held my sister with me."

Even before the winds passed and the rains stopped, business owners were contemplating how much money they lost after Hurricane Frances stole Labor Day weekend.

At Disney World, figures will reach millions of dollars.

At the Metro Cinema Cafi off U.S. 192, the loss is smaller, but the anguish just as harsh.

"Think about all the businesses that are dying," owner Lee Hicks said Sunday morning inside his darkened theater and bar. "I do 30 to 40 percent of my September sales on Labor Day weekend."

He had expected to pocket about $10,000 over the holiday weekend. Instead, the 49-year-old University of South Florida graduate spent Sunday trying to salvage his food inventory.

"I wish we had enough electricity," he said, "we'd play Spider-Man 2."

Paul and Ann Jutras, both 61, rode out Hurricane Frances on this barrier island. The family lost electricity but kept an emergency generator off to conserve fuel.

After darkness fell, they read by flashlight.

"I had three good hours of sleep," said Ann Jutras. "I didn't shut off the radio because I wanted to listen for the tornado warnings."

The noise outside didn't help. They got up at 5 a.m. Sunday to watch the storm from the front porch, occasionally stepping around the corner - quickly - to look for damage.

"It's really dangerous out there," Paul Jutras said. "The yard's covered with shingles."

Jeanette Turman was preparing to spend a second consecutive night sleeping on a church pew when a loud bang echoed through the church.

The church steeple had been blown off its post and had fallen, cross down, through the roof.

No one was injured, but the 25 people sheltering in the church had another problem.

The steeple was wedged into the roof and filling with rain. If they didn't get it out of the roof, it was going to tear a bigger hole.

The Rev. Rex Turman, who turned 77 the day Frances came to town, said two men who lived nearby climbed onto the roof, pulled out the steeple and nailed down plywood.

"I suggested they not do it," Turman said. "But they insisted."

With hurricane force winds blasting the church, the men did just that. In all the excitement, Turman didn't get both of their names.

"We owe them a debt of appreciation," he said.

Seeking safety from the storm, they huddled together in the windowless ballroom of the Radisson Hotel.

There was Graham McGhie and his wife and four children; a family from Venezuela; a pregnant woman from San Francisco; two lovebirds from Malta and evacuees from Osceola County.

Shortly after midnight, a grumble filled the room.

McGhie, a 48-year-old accountant from England, bolted straight up. Had the howling winds finally come?

"Someone is snoring," McGhie told his daughter, Kimberly, who burst into giggles. "It drives me up the wall."

After calming his 5-year-old daughter, Jennifer, McGhie popped the top on a Budweiser.

"It was quite exciting," McGhie said of Hurricane Frances. "Until it came."

James Berger, 40, heard a transformer blow.

He stepped outside his 89-year-old, two-story home Sunday in eastern Hillsborough County and saw a monstrous tree branch had fallen across Kingsway Avenue, blocking one lane of traffic.

Berger, his wife Jamie, 28, and son James Jr., 15, spent the rest of the morning waving off oncoming cars.

"Hillsborough isn't ready for a major storm," Berger said. "I can't believe how many psychos are still here, because I wouldn't be in a mobile home."

Moments later, the tree collapsed across the width of Kingsway.

David Jones had his first brush with Hurricane Frances when a metal awning flew through the air and landed atop his home in the Gulf Breeze Mobile Home Park.

Jones, a 24-year-old machine operator, wasn't afraid.

He climbed on the roof and shoved off the metal panels, which rested against power lines.

"I'm from Arkansas, man, that's tornado country," Jones said Sunday.

Times staff writers Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler, Sherri Day, Brady Dennis, Curtis Krueger, Chase Squires, Matt Waite and Times wires contributed to this report.