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Hurricane Wilma

Sure, the storm was bad, but . . .

After Wilma passed through, some South Florida residents found themselves frustrated and impatient. Immediately.

By TAMARA LUSH
Published November 5, 2005

MIAMI - Hurricane Wilma, with its 120-mph winds, punched South Florida in the gut.

A record 6-million people lost power. About 15,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in a three-county region, preliminary estimates show, with many of those homes inhabited by the elderly or poor. At least 27 people statewide died after the Oct. 24 storm, most from carbon monoxide poisoning or traffic crashes.

Yet compared to the concentrated fury of Hurricane Charley in Punta Gorda last year, or to the widespread death and devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in August, Wilma spared South Florida - and especially its suburban residents - from major destruction.

One wouldn't know it from listening to folks here.

"George W. Bush is forgetting about the little people, just like in New Orleans," said Cassie Williams, 51, of Fort Lauderdale. "We need food, we need water and we need checks."

Williams, whose home was not damaged, railed against the system on Oct. 26 - two days after the storm hit - while waiting three hours to eat a lukewarm chicken breast at a Salvation Army center. The complaints - especially coming from people who admitted they hadn't prepared, who had roofs over their heads, who had running water, who even had open supermarkets down the street - raised the ire of talk-show hosts, bloggers and pundits around the country.

"People need to be prepared and they are not because most of them are irresponsible and depending on the government for everything," read one typical post on Freerepublic.com. "When the gov. does not have bottles of water and ice on their footstep an hour after the hurricane they are complaining. Tough. Be responsible and stop the dependance (sic) on others."

Call it a lack of preparation, a failure to accept personal responsibility or good, old-fashioned denial: For whatever reason, South Floridians seem to have been less traumatized by Wilma's fury than by its aftermath.

"We're pampered, we're spoiled, we complain very easily," said Paul George, a history professor at Miami-Dade College and lifelong resident.

Every year, emergency planners in Florida make their pitch: Make sure you have amassed 72 hours' worth of food, water and medicine in case a storm hits. Why? Sometimes, it's just not possible for disaster crews to restore key services immediately after a storm hits.

"People had ample time to prepare, and it isn't that hard to get 72 hours of food and water, to do the simple things we ask people to do," said Gov. Jeb Bush.

Thousands of people ignored the warnings.

Many folks played amateur meteorologist and didn't take the warnings seriously. Some thought the storm wouldn't be that strong by the time it crossed the Florida peninsula. Others thought that because forecasters kept delaying the time of landfall, it would never arrive at all.

Certainly, no one thinks that people who lose their homes during a hurricane should shoulder the burden of rebuilding themselves, or that people should be punished for not preparing better.

But in South Florida, it seemed that even people who had prepared - people who still had quite a bit materially - complained that the government wasn't doing enough.

"I think they've forgotten about us," said Cary Rodriguez, who lives in Redland, a rural area in southern Miami-Dade County. "I was having a panic attack last night."

It was two days after the storm and Rodriguez had been sitting in her SUV for nearly two hours, waiting with dozens of other people to get gas in Kendall.

She said she had enough food and water, but needed gas not just for her vehicle, but for her generators to power the family's two refrigerators.

Forgotten? By whom?

A FEMA spokeswoman said 360 trucks dispensed water, food and ice within 24 hours of the storm passing through.

To be sure, hundreds of shipments were delayed in the early days - especially to the Florida Keys - because of bad cell phone connections and diesel pumping problems (many gas stations were unable to pump because of a lack of electricity). But to augment the free supplies, many grocery stores opened on generator power the day after the storm, selling food and warm water.

One emergency official even saw people eating Burger King while waiting in line for free food.

Compare that to Hurricane Andrew. Three days after that storm struck, only a few aid trucks had arrived.

"Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?" said Kate Hale, Dade County's emergency management director famously asked. "They keep saying we're going to get supplies. For God's sake, where are they?"

Still, officials were contrite after Wilma, most likely because of the backlash over the way officials handled Hurricane Katrina.

Gov. Bush apologized, saying that he had hoped that most of the supplies would have reached South Florida within 24 hours.

"If anybody wants to blame anybody, let them blame me. Don't blame FEMA," Bush said. "We did not perform to where we want to be."

One conservative think tank believes the more generous the government is, the more storm survivors expect.

"With each successive storm, the response has been increasingly generous," said Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. "As we get richer, we expect more and more, and we are sitting around waiting for someone to do more and more for us."

"We aren't prepared to live without electricity, no way," said Wilbert Lattimore, shaking his head.

The 49-year-old sat in a monster of a gas line in North Miami Beach two days after the storm. He admitted that he did little to prepare for Wilma - and because of that he was stressed out.

People in Florida are starting to realize that hurricanes are becoming a part of everyday life, said Charles Figley, director of the traumatology institute at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

"The reason why they are complaining is because they want to get back to normal," said Figley. "And normal is not real. It's a new normal, now."

It's also "easier to be a victim," he said.

"The difference between a victim and survivor, is that a victim says, "I can't do this because of what happened to me,"' said Figley. "For a survivor, the past is a source of inspiration."

Three days after the storm, a Wal-Mart in North Miami Beach opened. Inside, shoppers could purchase footballs, clothes, food and pallets of water. Ice, however, wasn't available.

In the parking lot outside, about 500 folks stood in a FEMA line for ice. And water.

When told that there was water available inside the store, Mike Schroeder, 49, said, "Are they giving it away?"

Glenn Simmons was born in rural Dade County in 1916. His earliest memory was from a hurricane, when his mother put all the kids on the porch and covered them with a blanket.

"She told us, if the shack starts to tip over, jump and run into the palmetto bushes," he recalled, chuckling. Simmons, too, was without power for several days after Wilma.

Simmons, a retired gator hunter who still lives in southeast Dade County, has been through so many hurricanes that he can't remember their names or the years they struck.

He does remember this: People seemed a lot tougher several decades ago. Fifty, 60, 70 years ago, folks lived not only without air conditioning, but most modern conveniences. "When people ain't got nothing, you got to be kind of tough to get by," he said. "Now, it's pitiful."

Paul George, the history professor, also grew up in Dade County.

"When the hurricanes came, they never seemed to pose this much of a problem," he mused. "When the juice went out, it went out."

Times staff writer Abhi Raghunathan and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

DEAD: 27 total. Collier (7), St. John's (1), Miami-Dade (7), Hillsborough (1), St. Lucie (2), Broward (5) and Palm Beach (4)

INJURED: 38 total; Collier (37), Indian River (1)

POWER OUTAGES: 434,943 residents without power (as of Friday)

POPULATION IN SHELTERS: 14 shelters open with 1,570 evacuees (as of Friday)

DAMAGE: 370,335 people have registered with FEMA for aid (as of Friday)

MONEY: $15.5-million given to storm victims so far by FEMA (as of Friday)

Source: Florida State Emergency Response Team, FEMA

[Last modified November 5, 2005, 01:38:00]