Posted on 02/18/2007 8:28:11 PM PST by STARWISE
Shoddy Repairs Prevented Her From Connecting Electricity Volunteers Helped End 15 Years Of Cold Showers
***
An elderly woman who had been living without power in her home due to hurricane damage was finally seeing the light Friday night, when power to her home was restored.
(snip)
.....she's been living without power to her house since August 24, 1992.
No heat when the winter chill settled over South Florida. No air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90's and the humidity clung to 100% .
Not one hot shower at home in nearly 15 years. Every morning started with an icy blast.
"I think it's like everything, you learn how to step into it, and wait, and when you feel it, you take your quick shower," she recalled.
(snip)
Like many people after that horrific storm, she had a problem with an unscrupulous contractor, and when the money from the insurance settlement ran out, the contractor did too, leaving her home half-repaired and not up to code, which meant it would not have the electricity connected.
(snip)
"It just never got done, and the money was gone, so I couldn't do a lot of things to allow me with Dade county to get my power back on," she said.
(snip)
She celebrated the new millennium with one tiny lamp and a single burner. On the 10th anniversary of Andrew in 2002, her neighbors celebrated their recovery; she was still living in the disaster.
Electrical contractor Kent Crook was amazed when he saw how she managed to get a tiny amount of electricity into the house for a Spartan existence.
"She has extension cords running into her house, plugged into a tiny little refrigerator and a cook top, and a lamp or two in front of her house," he marveled.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs4.com ...
An electrical contractor examines the makeshift electrical connection Norena used for 15 years to get a light and small refrigerator in her Cutler Bay home
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm just stunned. Having lost it all in Andrew (except my car), I can't imagine how an elderly woman survived in this sad state, in that decimated area, for this long. God love her, she's got some kind of fortitude and endurance. Damn those lousy, rotten thieving contractors.
I frankly can't believe that her neighbors didn't at least find someone amongst them who could help this lady! Did she not TELL anyone she no longer had power? Did NO neighbor ever wonder why there were no lights on at night?
Bush's Fault!
She was probably too embarrassed ... poor thing. People were traumatized and involved for years with their own rebuilding and recovery, if they stayed to deal with it.
Hurricane Andrew ~~ Ping!
Blame FEMA? Blame Bush?
Since she was getting some electricity with an extension cord, one of her neighbors almost certainly knew of her situation. It's amazing to me that nobody offered any help over the past 15 years.
Agreed. I would of been running wire and getting stuff hooked up for her.
I'm sure she was able to get down to the polls and vote for algore though.
That house is worth about 500K, she could have gotten a loan anytime to have put the power on.
Shes just crazy.
She might have been afraid she would lose her home for whatever reason real or imagined. After all she was "taken for a ride" by crooked Contractors therefore she probably didn't trust smiling faces.
I wonder if she was paying for it, if it was being donated to her, or if she was stealing it.
We all get busy with our lives and forget about our neighbors. How long since you dropped by to check on your elderly parents. Don't call them on the phone, stop by. Most elderly people won't tell their children their troubles. Either they sre embarassed, or they don't want to bother anyone with their problems.
I've often said that it's not that people don't care, it's often that they don't know. /rant off
Video of her (she's shielded) at that link.
Do you know her?
At least she had low utility bills for 15 years. HA!
not having a hot shower is like, what, #2,345,959 worse thing to ever happen to anybody?
I don't belittle this woman her experience, but she's alive, she has a home, she could have DONE something about this a long time ago, maybe call in the local newsrag to do an expose....
Sounds like how someone might live after a nuclear war...how many people might be living like this in New Orleans right now?
Now she is contributing to global warming.....shame on her....turn her power back off right now! (Just kidding...I wish the libs. would live without power...)
I was in Hurricane Andrew. I was stationed @ Homestead AFB (8th Air Wing, which is now closed because of the hurricane. I don't care what people think about a hurricane 15 years ago... I was there, and it was terrifying! It was practically a 30-50 mile wide lawnmower that went east to west for 100 miles across Florida... ironically Homestead AFB was dead center in the eye. I remember that Turkey Point had a crack in it's insulating concrete (Turkey Point was a nuclear reactor about 3 miles southeast of Homestead AFB)... and the only buildings still left stand (on base) were pretty much the dorms (barracks).... but even they were annihilated on the inside.
I have much sympathy for this woman (she was elderly) and I can understand her embarrassment.. living in an upper price range of property (Cutler Ridge)... FEMA screwed us over then... The insurance companies tried in all their power to say that Hurricanes/flooding wasn't in the agreement... and eventually many went bankrupt (goes with the territory, I guess)...
Anyway, I am glad, even after 15 years, she finally got something better ;)
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