Still-Stunned Residents Sift Through Wreckage

By LINDSAY PETERSON, ADAM EMERSON and TODD LESKANIC The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 4, 2007

With blue tarps and chain saws, the people of Central Florida began digging out and patching their lives back together Saturday, though many still were dazed by their sudden and massive losses.

Twenty people died in the powerful tornado that struck in the early morning darkness Friday. Weather officials say its winds may have exceeded 160 mph. Many of the dead were crushed in the debris of their homes.

After searching for two days, emergency officials said they think they have found every victim.

They are less certain about how many people in the four-county area have been left homeless. Hundreds of homes were seriously damaged or destroyed in the storms, including more than 100 in Lake County and 390 in Volusia County. Many of their occupants, though, seem to have fled to stay with friends and relatives elsewhere, Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said.

Not Vern and Louedna Huber of eastern Lake County. Vern, 87, and Louedna, 81, stayed at their battered home nearly all day, picking through the contents of their overturned garage.

They came out a few times to pick up a box of bottled water that volunteers had brought or to chat with deputies standing guard. Vern said two of his neighbors died.

"They found them down by the water. I guess the wind had carried them down," Huber said. "The home looks like somebody just wrapped it up in a ball."

The Hubers' home sustained little damage, but the elderly couple are emotionally shaken.

"We were luckier than the rest of them," he said, almost whispering. "We lost friends. Very troubling. … It looks like a bomb went off and everything just exploded."

President Bush declared the four damaged counties - Sumter, Lake, Volusia and Seminole - major disaster areas, making them eligible for federal assistance for temporary housing, home repairs and debris removal, and for low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison toured the area Saturday with Gov. Charlie Crist.

"It makes you sick to your stomach for what we saw," Paulison said.

He said his agency, severely criticized for inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, is "the new FEMA" and that housing trailers, water trucks and other aid were on the way.

Crist, who canceled plans to attend today's Super Bowl in Miami, said the damage was "unsurpassed by anything I have seen."

Amid the rasp of chain saws and pounding of hammers, Crist praised the residents and charitable groups who are helping the region clean up. Neighboring Marion County sent a group of low-risk inmates, dressed in green-and-white striped jail clothes.

Still, the work was a struggle as showers soaked roofless homes and piles of twisted aluminum siding, bricks, belongings, tree limbs and lumber. Power lines were down and traffic signals were out in many areas.

Among the storms' first victims were 18 endangered young whooping cranes that were led south from Wisconsin in the fall as part of a project to create a second migratory flock. The cranes, found dead after the storms passed, were being kept in an enclosure at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge near Crystal River.

Along U.S. 27 in Lady Lake, traffic crawled as gawkers reached their cell phones out their windows to take pictures of the once-towering, now flattened Church of God.

Survivors picked and sifted through the debris of their demolished homes, digging for photographs, jewelry and books.

Power was restored to all but 100 customers by Saturday afternoon.

Despite the devastation, only a handful of people came to the two available Lake County shelters, including First Baptist Church, where food donations piled up.

Volunteers carried in steaks, lasagna, ham, cookies, crackers and doughnuts. They also brought jackets, jeans and flannel shirts, as well as books and toys for children.

When no one arrived, the volunteers began trucking supplies to people in the storm-battered neighborhoods.

The main storm damage occurred along a 70-mile path running west to east. The tornado that touched down in Lady Lake carved a trail about five homes wide, a stretch that included Jessie Graf's home.

A blue tarp covered parts of the roof of the double-wide mobile home, but the back half was open to the elements.

A retired nursing assistant, Graf, 68, nearly broke down as she looked at the home that once belonged to her parents.

"Every time I come here, I am speechless," she said. "I don't know what to say."

Information from Tribune wire services was used in this report. Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834 or lpeterson@tampatrib.com.