Posted on 08/14/2004 3:20:38 PM PDT by bikepacker67
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - When Cindy Vallier returned home Saturday after Hurricane Charley, the bodies of the old couple across the road were lying in her front yard, covered in blankets. Staring at the old man's black wheelchair and twisted walker wedged under her husband's upturned truck, Vallier wonders how she can bear to move back to Crystal Lake mobile home park.
"Every time I walk down here, there's two dead people in my driveway," she said, envisioning the memory that will haunt her. She surveyed the twisted wreckage engulfing her home. It's what is left of her dead neighbors' doublewide trailer.
Crystal Lake, like much of Punta Gorda, is a scene of utter devastation. But like so many in this blessed and cursed part of Florida, Vallier knows she has no choice but to start again where she was.
"That was our home, that was our rental, that was our work truck," the 53-year-old disabled cleaning woman said, ticking off her list of ruined possessions. "That's all we got. I gotta move back here."
Vallier's neighbors were among 10 known deaths in this Charlotte County town nestled along the Gulf of Mexico. The victims' names were not immediately being released.
Vallier said the dead couple's grown son was thrown from the wreckage and was injured. He was found inside a closet of the trailer next door.
Charley's eye came right through Charlotte Harbor Friday afternoon, packing winds of up to 145 mph.
Dane Gomez, 28, was renting his parents' old trailer in the Baileyville neighborhood of Punta Gorda. This little uninsured mobile home was his first taste of real independence.
"I called it home sweet home," Gomez said as he combed the rubble in vain for his 3-year-old cat, Oscar. "I don't know why God intended for this to happen. It's not right. It's not fair. How do you get back what you lost?"
Many of those left homeless by Charley were retirees who came to Florida after a lifetime of sweat and toil. They awoke Saturday to find that their toil had only just begun.
Barbara Seaman stood in the wreckage of the clubhouse at the Windmill Village trailer park and gaped.
"This was so pretty," she said, standing by a marina choked with pontoons and pleasure boats.
The 69-year-old retired florist and her companion, Rudy Ricci, 78, returned Saturday to find most of their roof gone and their trailer twisted so badly the doors would not open. As they arrived, a great blue heron landed in the back yard - waiting for his usual snack of turkey hot dogs.
"Where do we go now?" Seaman asked. "What do we do?"
Off Florida Street, Karen Hull walked through a home littered with decapitated plaster figurines. She and her husband, Ed, had added a living room, a screen porch and a carport to their singlewide trailer in the three years they had lived there.
Now, they are back to square one.
"You know, what's here is the old home," Hull, 50, said with a rueful grin. "It was a nice place."
Her husband, Ed, stood nearby wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt with the inscription: "Life is full of important choices."
It may be weeks before people in Punta Gorda get their power and water back. It will be much longer before they feel at home again.
Back at Crystal Lake, Vallier recalled the neighbors she lost.
She had cleaned home for the old woman many years ago, and she remembered the lady always tipped her. Vallier's husband, Clint Comstock, would sometimes help the old man, who was crippled with diabetes.
Vallier said the elderly couple had moved away from Punta Gorda to be closer to family. But they moved back about four months ago, because this was where the old man wanted to die.
"He got his wish," she said darkly.
Vallier's husband, who owns a tree-removal company, was too busy for sorrow.
He worked in the blistering sun to move what he could salvage into the only room of his house that survived - the bedroom. Scattered across the floor were programs from his father's memorial service in 1996.
The verse inside was oddly appropriate:
"God hath not promised
"Skies always blue ....
"God hath not promised
"Sun without rain,
"Joy without sorrow,
"Peace without pain."
He plans to rebuild on the same spot. And, unlike his wife, he doesn't think he'll be haunted.
"Life goes on," he said. "You've just got to get on with it, that's all."
Dane Gomez wasn't blaming either Bush-but he was blaming God.
He's young though, and in terrible circumstances caused by natural disasters, it seems that we humans will at first foolishly turn our rath upon God, just when we need him most desperately.
Prayers and condolences for all those who have had their lives taken or otherwise devastated by these storms.
I didn't read it as blaming, just a "why", something that we have all asked at one time or another.
You just made hundred's of thousands people homeless who otherwise would have a home of their own.
Tip of the day: You don't ride out a hurricane in a aluminum box with wheels.
Well, it is all Bush's fault.
I have a problem with self-important sanctimonious self-designated thread cops who try to tell everyone what they should or shouldn't do "because they can" "because they can."
That horsefaced SOB isn't welcome here. If anybody's trolling for votes it's him.
Thanks, was just reading there. It's unreal that anyone could blame the aftermath of a storm on any human.
Maybe it was "why", I wasn't knocking him for it.
How original!
Just like the tired old whine..."they will blame it on Bush."
Thanks.......it sickens me to think any one sane is actually doing this, but, it IS an election year and I imagine that DemoRAT talking points were issued before Charley even made landfall.................;^(
Kerry will definately be there early, probably getting into everyone's way, throwing his football and pitching his baseball,being the damn fool that nature apparently created him to be. Proving that even a blooming idiot can grow up and run for President of the USA.
"they will blame it on Bush." In your opinion is a tired old whine? Expressing a genuine and proven fact of life, is reviewed by you as a whine?
You are either in denial, or else you agree with those trolls who blame Bush for everything that ever happened in America, while not allowing him one iota of credit for the good things that have happened on his watch.
You've been here a long time-planted DU sleeper huh?
Well, maybe a Witch Doctor or Orc Shaman... seriously, I had the link saved for that "dark underbelly" stuff that I keep updated, so it was easy to find quickly.
...it sickens me to think any one sane is actually doing this, but, it IS an election year and I imagine that DemoRAT talking points were issued before Charley even made landfall...
I swear I saw something about that on another post, but it isn't saved among my stuff.
Unhappily, since the Clintons completed the corruption of the Democrat party at the end of the last century, the dispute between Right & Left is no longer a difference in more government versus less government philosopy, but rather a raw, naked grab for power at any & all costs. They will simply use anything, no matter how false or slimey to try to pull the President down, one notch at a time, until he finally falls.
It is repugnant beyond my ability to express.
The Old Left- Hubert Humphrey, Pat Moynihan- did not hate America or Americans... you could disagree on some points with them, but you would not have minded either as a friend or neighbor.
This new batch- Lanny Davis, Carville, Bloomenthal- I would not want on the same block with me. They are that power-mad, crazed, and thuggish.
Oh, s*it!
I am busted!
Why did Bush do this to me?
It was 250 patients; they had to be transferred.
They are all real sketchy on the number of deaths, which I think is a bad move on their part; when the number comes out, I think people are going to be stunned.
Get lost,loser
Howlin,They just said on our local news they are guarding bodies there.This is a local channel in Philly PA..
Is it possible that things are so messed up, that there are really no hard facts to report, at all; and the media is running with rumors?
Well, I heard that particular interview Mike was talking about and she was talking about 250 patients that were moved during the night.
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