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A shift toward salvage

THE 20 VICTIMS: Storms claim siblings, mothers, husbands. The toll rose in Lake County. THE DAMAGE: Officials say 1,500 homes were hit; a flock of rare cranes was destroyed.

By BRADY DENNIS and BEN MONTGOMERY
Published February 4, 2007

LAKE MACK - The donations from the First Assembly of God in Eustis sat untouched on a folding table under a tent beside the Lake County Fire Department Station 2.

Chocolate-covered donuts, Honey Buns, bananas, apples, Cheetos, Doritos and Grandma's cookies in four varieties.

A few blocks from the worst of this storm, volunteers from the Lions Club in Umatilla brought ice and ketchup and frozen steaks in the backs of pickups. Two semitrailer trucks from Compassion Alliance in Ocala arrived with water and military rations.

Only one thing was missing from the rescue station nearest to the area hardest hit by Friday's tornado.

People.

Thirteen died here. Scores of homes were ruined. But few came to Station 2 or the emergency shelter up the road for help or handouts Saturday, offering a stark reminder about Friday's early morning tornado: It was no hurricane.

Hurricanes blanket entire regions with misery, with howling winds that can stretch for 100 miles or more and often spawn small tornadoes. They leave behind dangling stoplights. They deposit 100-year-old live oaks across roads. They steal power and water from hundreds of thousands of residents, often in the brutal heat of summer.

Not so with tornadoes, which can drop out of the sky and take lives, then disappear. Friday's storm was destructive but damage was spotty in an area perhaps 40 miles wide.

Twenty people were killed, more than the toll of most of the hurricanes that have hit Florida since 2004.

During Hurricane Andrew in 1992, it took 34 days to restore power to 1.5-million customers. Hurricane Ivan knocked out power to more than 1.5-million homes and businesses in four states, including 400,000 in Florida. It sent more than 26,000 Floridians into shelters.

This storm?

About 100 people ended up in shelters. An estimated 40,000 lost power. Officials said they expected to have all power back by Saturday evening.

In DeLand, blocks from where CNN beamed images of the tornado's death and destruction across the world, daily life marched on.

The fast-food drive-throughs were open. The gas pumps were pumping. The regulars packed the parking lot at the Big Rig restaurant.

Women in hair salons read Us Weekly. Publix had fresh sushi and shrimp, and no one seemed in much of a hurry to stock up on bread or water. At a Lowe's store, couples browsed for riding lawn mowers and light fixtures, though there had been a run on tarps.

People seemed to have lost everything, or nothing. For Bill Bailey, it was everything.

"It's finished. It's through," Bailey said as he looked around his two-story house on New Hampshire Avenue. The tornado had ripped off an entire side and ravaged the inside. It was raining in his bedroom, so he and his wife slept in their truck.

"It looks like a giant walked through here with a weed whacker," he said. "What can you do?"

'I feel blessed'

A few streets away, amid the wasteland of abandoned homes and apartment buildings, the Rev. Obadiah Henry stood outside the shell of the house where he and his wife raised three children.

The roof was gone, the windows blown out. He'd slept on the floor of his church Friday night.

Now, members of his congregation had come to load the couple's furniture into trucks before the rain ruined what the tornado had not.

"A few blocks over, it's like it wasn't even hit," Henry said. "But I feel blessed we came out alive. It gave me a deeper respect for life. It took me to another level."

What would his family do now? "That's a good question," Henry said. "I don't really have the answer to that."

But he knew he would be at the pulpit this morning.

At Bear Lake, Bruce Ruckert, 70, counted himself among the lucky. His carport and pool enclosure blew away, but his family was spared. The homes of his neighbors were gone. A group of trees 50 feet away was sheared in half.

"I'm just so thankful that our family is intact," he said.

At Station 2, members of the Army National Guard sat around a table holding their rifles while men installed pay phones out front and volunteers unloaded even more trucks. Hamburgers sizzled on a grill. A woman arranged Styrofoam cups by the coffee pot, then rearranged them a few minutes later.

Some seemed dumbfounded that no red-eyed refugees were lining up for assistance.

"People are just scared to leave their piles," said Julia Clark, who lives up the road and was one of the few residents to come by Saturday morning.

Steve Ewing, vice president of Compassion Alliance, said activity was light at all three of the group's distribution points. But he wasn't worried.

"One of our rules is to err on the side of generosity," Ewing said. "It's better to have too much."

[Last modified February 4, 2007, 00:28:29]