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Recovery crawling like storm

Just as it took Frances awhile to pass through Hernando County, it's taking time to get everything back to some level of normalcy.

Slowly, much too slowly for some, lights are coming on in Hernando County. Shelters have cleared. The storm has passed, and the county is trying to make itself whole again.

"We are in that transition stage between disaster response and disaster recovery," emergency management director Tom Leto said Wednesday.

The key to relieving folks' immediate distress and speeding the recovery is power restoration, Leto said. With power, there is less need to get ice, water and food to those displaced and stung by the storm.

Unfortunately, as of Wednesday evening, 5,271 Progress Energy Florida customers lacked electricity, up from 4,650 the night before.

Progress Energy spokeswoman Cary Harris said the increase is likely the result of those who evacuated the area returning home and reporting they don't have power. Also, she said, continued flooding could have caused more outages.

Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative had 5,400 customers without power Wednesday night, down from 9,600 Tuesday night.

Company spokesman Ernie Holzhauer cautioned that it takes longer to repair damaged tap lines, which connect individual homes to distribution lines.

"You could work several hours on one customer and the progress is going to be slow," Holzhauer said. "The work effort will not."

Beating the heat with no electricity is a challenge, but many benefited from local Wal-Mart stores, which have given away five semitrailer truckloads of water and four truckloads of ice in the past two days.

Hundreds of residents without power flocked to the few cool, air-conditioned Hernando County library branches, most of which have had power since Tuesday.

The Internet lab at the West Hernando branch was still down Wednesday. However, the Internet was up and running at the Brooksville branch, and computer usage had doubled on Tuesday, compared to days past.

Librarians had to cut back the computer time allowed each person from 60 to 30 minutes, because the computers were getting booked several hours in advance.

"We've had a number of people just sitting here for hours, reading magazines," said Robin Bravard, a reference librarian at the Brooksville branch. "I think everyone is just happy to have a place to go."

Initial estimates have found 18 county homes whose roofs were damaged by trees, 17 damaged by Frances' winds, 10 that are flooded, six with trees still fallen on them and nine homes with multiple kinds of damage.

Tuesday night, Hernando was declared eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency individual assistance aid, which includes small grants to provide for immediate shelter needs and some home repairs not covered by insurance.

Today, FEMA teams will begin outreach tours of Hernando and likely will stress the importance of calling 1-800-462-9029 to register for assistance.

"The first step to getting any help is getting registered," Leto said. "Even if you had food in the refrigerator that was lost, call them and claim it."

Today, the county is expected to announce a schedule for curbside pickup of debris over the next two weeks. Couches and other bulk trash will not be hauled away, just downed trees and other vegetation.

Residents can get a start by separating the debris into two piles: one of smaller twigs and branches, another of thicker trunks. County officials said all debris would be picked up and urged residents not to spend too much time trying to decide what's a branch and what's a trunk.

Also, the county has set up two debris dropoff stations, one at Jenkins Creek Park on Shoal Line Boulevard, the other at Weeki Wachee Preserve at Osowaw Boulevard. Officials ask that trunks and limbs be cut into three-to four-foot sections before disposal at the sites.

But even as some are cleaning up the damage wrought by Frances, others still are bracing for the storm's watery aftereffects.

Talena Sweet and a half-dozen family members went to the Ridge Manor Community Center to fill the back of a pickup with sandbags.

"It's up to my back door now. That's why I'm getting sandbags. I saw a gator in my back yard yesterday," said Sweet, 38, who lives with her three children in a mobile home in Talisman Estates in southeastern Hernando County.

Residents in the mobile home community, considered the most flood-prone in Hernando County, have watched water from the Withlacoochee fill their streets and yards in the past three days.

Floodwaters will continue to rise, but not as far as forecasters previously thought, said Todd Hamill of the National Weather Service's Southeast River Forecast Center in Georgia.

On Tuesday, the center's forecast was for the river to crest at 15.3 feet at the gauge at Trilby, where flood stage is 12 feet. The floodwater is now expected to top out at 13.7 feet, about two inches higher than it was Wednesday afternoon.

"I looked at some of our old floods, and based on what is happening - now it looks as though we'll have a lower crest," Hamill said. But the river also will recede more slowly than expected, he said, and it could remain above flood stage for another week.

Routine summer thunderstorms could send it back above its current level, he warned. If Hurricane Ivan comes anywhere near Hernando County, he said, the results would be disastrous.

"We have to watch those areas very closely, because they are so wet," Hamill said.

Flooding has covered roads in Ridge Manor, Masaryktown and near Bystre Lake, but the county Emergency Operations Center had received no reports of water inundating homes; 11 residents spent Tuesday night at a shelter for flood victims at First United Methodist Church in Brooksville.

The water on Bonnie Lake, southeast of Brooksville rose to within a few feet of the house where Ralph Bird lives; by Wednesday afternoon, the water level had receded about two feet, he said. But he, like Hamill, said the ground is so wet that more heavy rain would create a serious problem.

"If we catch Ivan, we're gone," Bird said.

Will Van Sant can be reached at 754-6127 or vansant@sptimes.com