Hurricanes Frances & Jeanne, 2004 They Were Not KATRINA But They Were Not Nice PLEASE READ ON
Hurricane Frances was my first disaster (And wasn't my last). Frances arrived late Sept. 4th or early on the 5th
The 1st picture is my home, no damage just a huge tree branch in the front yard. Lots of debris. The only times I've ever seen a disaster was on the 5 O'Clock news. I have met the most incredible people. I want to sing the praises of all of the agencies that came to help us.
Red Cross & Salvation Army were here with hot meals & water (Always with a smile on their faces & something cheerful or supportive to say). The Salvation Army came all the way from Minnesota. The National Guard patrolled our park every night to keep us safe from looters. The Fort Pierce Police & the National Guard were protecting the Salvation Army while they were serving us meals. The Council for the aging came through our park and offerred us canned goods, water & ice. I took a bag of ice & it was a real
treat to have cold water to drink for a day. Even Budweiser trucked in 50 cases of canned
water to our park.
I was outside in the eye of a Hurricane.
I'm sure not a whole lot of people can say that. It was accidental. I was staying at my Sister's home in Port St. Lucie because she has a block home. She
doesn't smoke so I was going outside to smoke. When Frances got close she set a chair & table in the garage for me. She said she didn't want me outside until Frances had passed.
I woke up in the middle of the night and just by habit, being sleepy, I grabbed a cigarette, lighter, & went outside. I was smoking on the front stoop when I
remembered that I wasn't suppose to be outside. Then I started to wake up a little & realized there was no sound at all, no movement, not even a blade of grass.
It was an awesome feeling. I went back to bed & the second half of Frances hit. It sounded like Santa & all of his reindeers were on the roof, angry because they
couldn't find the chimney. Then I heard sounds like something was being ripped off of the house. It was a little scary to say the least. When my Sister woke up
& accessed the damage, she had lost some shingles and some porch screening, & the ripping sound was the solar panels that heat the pool. They were all laying in the yard.
She had spent 9 hours in line at Home Depot waiting for them to truck in more plywood. My Brother came down from Vero Beach to help her board up the windows. While they
were working, 2 neighbors came over to help.
We spent 2 days getting drunk & playing poker after the electric went out. Nothin' else to do.
Then it was time to go home. My Brother left first & drove by my mobile home to see if it was there. He called to let me know that it was & it didn't appear to be damaged.
We were still under curfew. The Government said we were not allowed to be out on the road but I wanted to go home. My 5 cats & I were in a small extra bedroom & I wanted to get
them back home so things would feel more normal for them. They really hated those cat carriers. So my Sister was bringing us back home & there were Police at an
intersection stopping everyone. We both got out our identification to prove we belonged there & all he asked was where we were going. She said she was taking me back home to
Fort Pierce & he said OK, go. We pulled into my trailer park & all I could say was
OH MY GOD, WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE TOTO!!
There were parts of people's homes
EVERYWHERE. Some had crushed in places, some lost a carport, a shed, a patio, a porch, a roof. It was indredible. After we settled back in, I checked for damage. I have a small dent
and a scratch at the back of my trailer. My shed got a little banged up from flying debis but it's just used for storage.
IT'S NOT OVER YET!
No water or electric. No phone, no internet access, no cable. I don't even have a battery powered radio that works. I spent day after day sitting in my recliner wiping sweat off my face.
The day after I was home, I had ridden my tricycle up the road a ways to see if I could find something cold to drink which is when I encountered the Salvation Army. The Red Cross
actually came into our park because most of us are elderly, disabled or both. The 2nd day after coming home, I went in search of a pay phone because I had a sick
feeling in my stomach and I knew it was because my Mother tried to call & was worried. My Mother is 73, raised 4 of us kids & just doesn't need to be worried anymore.
No pay phone in the area worked & all but one kept my money. I went into a chinese restaurant for a cold drink. They were running on generators. No one else up & down the
road had electric. A man had his laptop hooked up to their phone so I was waiting. They didn't have servers so everything was 'to go'. I overheard a man telling a couple of ladies that one of his generators went out last night so I asked him
whether propane or gas was better & what size I should get and other things. While we were talking, he said something about waiting for our food. I told him that I wasn't here for
food, I only came out to find a pay phone so I could tell my Mom not to worry about me.He pulled out a cell phone & said what's her number. I said No, it's long distance,
she lives in Vero Beach. He insisted I call my Mom with his phone. I did, told her quickly that I was using a nice young gentleman's cell phone in a chinese restaurant, not to
worry & I'll call her just as soon as I have phone service. That meant the world to me and I know it made my Mom feel a whole lot better.
After that the days start getting fuzzy, but one evening I got up the nerve to go knocking on my neighbors doors to find someone with an extra deck of cards so I could at
least play solitaire. It was very dark, could have been a new moon, could have been clouds were hiding the moon. I heard a female voice that sounded like she was on her porch
talking on the phone so I headed that way. When I got close, her voice stopped & I couldn't tell which one of two homes her voice had come from so I said "Hello?", she answered "Hello!".
I asked if she had an extra deck of cards, she said yes, brought them out to me and asked if I was alone too. I told her yes and she said maybe she'll come over & chat with
me later. I told her that it would be wonderful to have some company. 10-15 minutes later I saw a flashlight be-bopping down the road. We talked for hours. Even though she was 15 years
my junior, we had so many things & interests in common. Neither of us drive & we both ride tricycles among other things. She had come down here to assist an elderly woman who
was now in the hospital so there was no reason to stay. She was waiting on some friends to come from North Carolina to take her back home. We exchanged contact info & promised
to stay in touch & her friends arrived. She gave me 2 flashlights, a deck of cards, 8 bottles of water and a half a dozen candles so I could have some light until the power
came back on. I gave her a bottle of vodka and a box of wine. 2 days later I was coming home from lunch at the Salvation Army truck and saw a neighbor walking his dog. I stopped
to chat & he told me that Budweiser had just dropped off water at our clubhouse & to go get some. I did & later that night I was wondering why Budweiser?, how did they know
we needed water, why not Pepsi, Coke, Miller, At&t, Microsoft for cyring out loud, when it dawned on me that the young lady I had met 2 nights before had told me that she
had been Miss Budweiser twice. I knew that when she got back home she had called them & asked if there was something they could do to help us. Made me want to cry.
I lost 2 freezers and a refridgerator packed with food. Everything from cheap TV dinners to a $50 box of bacon wrapped Filet Mignon, all of the things we have in a refridgerator
that say "Refridgerate after opening". Every time I started to feel sorry for myself, I thought of so many people that have so much less than I do. It
broke my heart to lose all of that food. I hired a guy to take it to the trash for me. If I could have known that I was going to lose it, I would have gladly donated it all
to an agency that could have found people that needed it.
I pee'd in the bathtub saving the toilet for other things. I collected rain water in buckets & bowls so I could flush my toilet. Twice I showered outside. Most people had evacuated and were'nt back home yet. I saw a rain cloud
coming close, got a washcloth, put some bottled water & softsoap on it, soaped myself up, waited for the rain & went out in a little nightie to rinse off. I didn't care if
anyone saw me because we were all in the same situation.
One day I was headed to the Salvation Army truck to get some lunch & there were Fort Pierce Utility Authorities guys here. They are our local electric company. I stopped
to asked if they had an estimate of when we might have electric. One said maybe 2 weeks, maybe longer depending on what the next hurricane does. I said "next hurricane?" and
another guy said "yeah, haven't you been watching the news?" Well, I felt like saying you are the F***ing electric company, here to fix my F***ing electric and you are
asking me if I've been watching the F***ing NEWS?? But, My Mother taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all and you can catch more flies with
honey than vinegar, so I said that I put a battery in my radio but it didn't work. They told me it was Ivan and it looked like it was going to head right up the middle of Florida. Ivan hit the west side of Florida.
Saturday night, I was coming home from dinner and my tricycle motor battery quit. I was right at a person's home that had a generator. I asked if I could re-charge the
battery on his generator and offered to pay him, twice. He hooked it up & when I came back to get it, offered to pay him again. He wouldn't take my money. He said that he was happy to help.
Another day I went out looking for a 9 volt battery for the clock radio, thinking mine just didn't work right. I asked a guy in a golf cart, turned out he's a maintenance guy for the park. He said he would check when he got home. Later he brought a portable radio to me and explained that the 9 volt is only to keep the clock on, not to run the radio. I found a radio station that had normally broadcast Country music was broadcasting 24 hour Hurricane updates. People were calling from all over South Florida, either asking for what they needed or telling what they could do. People who had gotten their power back were willing to loan their generator to someone else. People were offering to bring ice, water & food to others. It was 24 hours/day of asking, offering and receiving. The only requirement for asking was that it be hurricane related. It was very heart warming.
Sunday sept 12th, my electric & water came back on. I went looking for a phone a few doors down from me. I met the nicest lady. She's 77 & her husband is in a nursing home with
Alzheimer's. We talked for hours and she let me call my Mom. Bell South couldn't tell me why all my neighbors had phone service but not me.
Monday, I was on my way over to her house to ask if she would take me to K-Mart because I think I ran over some broken glass & got a flat tire on my tricycle and somehow my air pump got broken
so I needed a new air pump & a tire tube & she was just leaving to go to pick up some milk. She took me with her.
At the K-Mart check-out, the cashier asked me for my zip code and my mind went completely blank. She said the first 2 numbers & it came back to me. I felt like a walking zombie.
Then we went to the grocery store. We each picked up milk & margarine. Everyone was quite friendly when I asked what damage they had.
One womans roof came off and the water ruined everything in her home. She had to rent an apartment until she could get it fixed. Another woman lost part of her roof and also had
a lot of damage inside. These were regular homes, not mobile homes, just a mile away from me.
My Mother lost everything but her bedroom. She lives 30 minutes away. The roof flew off and the water flooded everything.
I got back home & my Sister had dropped off my cell phone which had fallen out of my purse at her house. I called their information number to find out how many minutes
I had left (it's prepaid) & I couldn't remember my number or my PIN code. It did come back to me but I felt like Rip Van Winkle and I had awaken after years & couldn't remember
anything about my life before I went to sleep. I called Bell South about my home phone service and had to think real hard to remember my own phone number. Then I started to call my
Mom & couldn't remember her number even though I had just dialed it the day before, I started to look it up when I remembered it.
I have an anxiety disorder and don't like to leave my home at all & in 1 day, went out 6 times. Every day without electricity, I had to go out to get something to eat.
My 77 year old neighbor called this "11 days of hell". I thought that would be a good title for a book if someone wanted to interview a lot of people that went through this. I'm positive
that I'm not the only one that has stories about how incredible people are when disaster hits and it's neighbor helping neighbor and families banding together.
Wednesday the 15th, I got cable back and Thursday the 16th, I got phone, internet & gas back. I hadn't even noticed that the gas wasn't on because it only runs the range & I don't cook much. I use the microwave.
Friday the 17th I emailed Omaha Steaks, explained to them that I not only lost my last 2 orders from them but a whole lot more and would appreciate it they could send me a little something. They emailed me
back to tell me that they would replace my last order (which happened to include that $50 box of bacon wrapped filet mignon) and when to expect it to arrive.
KUDOS TO OMAHA STEAKS!!
Monday the 20th, NetGrocer called me, returning my email to them, and said they were giving me $100 credit on my next order.
KUDOS TO NETGROCER & SHOP RITE which is a partner of theirs.
Schwan's wouldn't send me anything so I cancelled my account with them
Someone came by & cut up the huge branch that was in my front yard & stacked it up for the trash to pick it up. I have no idea who.
Then, September 24th or 25th, we got hit by Jeanne. More devastation. Me, I had God on my side & angels dancing on my roof. I had more aluminum in my yard both times, than I would need to build a mobile home. A little more damage this time, but no leaks. Half of my front window awning was sheared off, some of my windows don't work right anymore. Frances knocked down my orange tree & Jeanne knocked down my ruby red grapefruit tree. One of the nicer things about living in Florida is having fresh squeezed juice with breakfast. I can do a little but had to pay people to take the rest to the curb. The city trash guys were so inundated after Frances that we were asked to secure our trash somehow before Jeanne hit. Anything outside & some stuff inside could become a missile at 130 MPH, could damage someone's home or even kill someone.
The news said that if we didn't have much damage from Frances, we'd probably do alright for Jeanne so even though I'm in a mandatory evacuation area, I rode her out, right here, call me crazy, my family sure did. My trailer was a rockin' and a rollin'. More fun than a ride at Disney. There was a lot of noise from flying aluminum but nothing as terrifying as Frances at my Sister's house, Jeanne went by real fast compared to Frances, seemed like only a few hours. Of course, another week or so without any utlities. I had filled every container I had to make blocks of ice for the frezzer, I didn't want to lose the only food I had which was the replacement order from Omaha steaks. When my Mother got her electric back, she brought down her blocks of ice for my freezer.
The Mobile home Park I live in finally hired a contractor to pick up everything to take some burden off of the city. They're still cleaning up, 11-24-2004, & there'e a lot more to do. Quite a few mobile homes were declared inhabitable in this park and had to be demolished. FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, messed up my applications for assistance. Instead of having 1 app for Frances & 1 for Jeanne, I had no app for Frances & what appeared to them as 2 fraudulant apps for Jeanne. After calling non stop for 4 hours, I got it squared away, now the waiting game again. They don't reimburse for ruined food & they couldn't tell me whether they help for downed trees. They did reimburese me for a generator I bought 1 day before my electric came back on after the 2nd hurricane.
There are thousands of blue roofs here. Blue tarps over peoples roofs, not enough roofing contractors to go around. Anyone with a tarp on their roof after Frances (my Mother), lost the tarp & got even more damage with Jeanne.
The last time 4 hurricanes hit the same state during one season was Texas in 1886. I think Rita was the 4th hurricane to hit Florida. It's unprecedented, in documented history, for 2 hurricanes to hit the same area in 3 weeks.
I finally got my trees put back up in February 2005. Amazingly they were both still alive.
The first 1st & 3rd pictures are my home. The others are my neighbors.
