On Monday morning, the Clover Leaf Farms mobile home community in Brooksville looked like a veritable ghost town. The normally tidy streets were strewn with shattered tree limbs and chunks of Spanish moss ripped loose by the fierce winds of Frances.
There was hardly a soul in sight because most residents chose to heed evacuation orders and flee the storm's wrath rather than risk their lives inside their aluminum manufactured homes.
Maureen Weinstein was one of the few who stayed. Instead of packing up and heading to Hernando High School like most of her neighbors, she rode out the storm with her son and a friend, plus a menagerie of family pets.
"No way we were going to spend two days in a high school gym," reckoned Weinstein, 55. "I decided to stay and take my chances."
Fortunately, Weinstein's gamble ended on a positive note. Aside from a yard littered with debris, the worst she experienced was a brief scare when she felt the mobile home shudder beneath some strong gusts of wind.
"It felt like the air pressure had suddenly changed," Weinstein said. "It vibrated for a little bit, and then it stopped."
For the most part, Hernando County's mobile home communities seem to have fared better than many feared. Winds in excess of 60 mph buffeted homes in places such as High Point and Tall Oaks, tearing off roofs and causing aluminum porches to collapse, but no serious injuries were reported.
Perhaps the greatest threat to mobile home owners came not from wind, but from water. That's what Bill and Pat McQueen faced when they returned to Clover Leaf Farms from out of town late Monday morning. As they drove down Twingate Avenue toward their home the couple was forced to stop when the water became too deep for their car.
"I could see the house, but I wasn't about to wade up to the door," Pat McQueen said. "I don't think the water's inside yet, but I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before it does."
Fifty-eight-year-old David Braum returned to find his mobile home in the Southway Villa Mobile Home Park in Brooksville had narrowly escaped being hit by a huge tree limb.
"I've learned it's better to just leave than to risk getting injured or trapped when a storm comes," Braum said. "If it gets bad, I'll leave again."
According to High Point Property Owners Association president Robert Kinman, most mobile home dwellers tend to obey orders to evacuate during storms rather than risk the consequences.
"What Hurricane Charley did to mobile homes is still fresh in everyone's mind," said Kinman, who along with his wife, Nelda, waited out Frances' wrath in the High Point concrete-block community center. Kinman said he believed about half of the community's full-time residents evacuated when the order was issued Saturday morning.
Officials said about 30 homes in High Point received wind damage during the storm. Several lost roofs or had awnings and gutters torn off.
"That wind gets hold of a carport or an awning, and it'll just keep lifting that metal until the roof's gone," Kinman said. "That's why people should listen to us and get the hell out."
