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Students' trip becomes an adventure

About three dozen members of Campus Crusade for Christ were evacuated Monday when after Tropical Storm Alberto's winds tore away a chunk of their hotel's roof.

By DEMORRIS A. LEE and LORRI HELFAND
Published June 13, 2006

CLEARWATER - About three dozen members of Campus Crusade for Christ were evacuated Monday night after Tropical Storm Alberto's winds tore away a chunk of their hotel's roof.

No one was hurt, but a Nissan Pathfinder parked nearby was damaged by shingles from the Sunrise Resort North at 669 Mandalay Ave. shortly after 10 p.m.

"It was pretty crazy," said Matthew Castro, 22, a recent of University of Tennessee graduate who is a member of the Crusade for Christ group. "It was one of those fearful yet exciting moments."

High winds blew part of the roof from over Rooms 20 and 21, allowing water to gush in. The Clearwater Fire Department responded and put up blue tarps to help keep the water out, and a hotel employee went up to start repairs as pieces of the roof flapped in the wind.

"I got up there in the wind and rain trying to nail things down," said Michael Thompson, a hotel maintenance and front desk worker. The asphalt roofing came off, exposing the bare wood on an area measuring about 30 by 40 feet.

Along with securing the building, "we moved everyone after the roof blew off for safety concerns," Thompson said.

Thirty-four members of the Campus Crusade for Christ group were moved to Grace Christian Fellowship Church on Ridge Road in Largo, said Mark Valentine, the group's project director for this trip. Those moved were college-age women, along with a few staff members and their families. The group had been staying at the hotel during a 10-week mission that started in May.

On Tuesday morning, Valentine and three other men from the group were helping to repair the roof.

Between the damage to the hotel, moving the women and getting calls from worried relatives, it was an intense evening, Castro said.

"If it wasn't for Grace, who knows what we would have done?" he said. "We had nowhere to put that many girls."

Directly across the street, high winds pushed a crane into an apartment building under construction about 9:14 p.m. Monday, damaging a corner of an upper-floor balcony. The building, which was unoccupied, is at 14 Somerset St. The damage was barely visible, Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said.

Elsewhere, local officials reported relatively little damage in mid and North Pinellas.

"We're doing fine," said Largo Fire Chief Jeff Bullock, who was up all night awaiting Alberto.

Bullock said his department planned for the worst, but that he knew of little damage in Largo due to the storm. He did report that city employees cleared a tree that had fallen on Wild Acres Road.

The city planned to use one of Largo's large dump trucks to evacuate residents in flooded areas, keeping a special eye on Mariner's Cove Mobile Home Park, which was soaked during February's torrential rains. The truck was packed with life jackets in case firefighters needed to do water rescues, Bullock said.

That wasn't necessary overnight, but Bullock warned that the afternoon could bring more serious weather.

He said emergency personnel obtained a roster of Mariner's Cove residents and will evacuate the park if the storm intensifies later. In February, at least a dozen of the more than 90 homes at Mariner's Cove sustained some level of damage. The county condemned a few of them, and some residents had to find other accommodations. Many of those who stayed behind had to repair roofs and floors and damaged cars.

A firefighter training session also was canceled Monday, so the department would have an extra engine to handle storm calls, Bullock said.

- Times staff writer Ashlee Clark contributed to this report.

[Last modified June 13, 2006, 10:56:02]