It’s been a challenging time for residents of Northwest Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias, which made landfall near Destin last Friday night. This week, WUWF’s Sandra Averhart spent some time in Santa Rosa County to talk with locals about their storm experience and their early recovery efforts.
The City of Milton was among the communities hardest hit by Isaias. Milton High School suffered extensive damage, and as did the Park Avenue Apartments nearby. For about two years, Darcy Gartman lived in the apartment complex, where the roof was blown off.
"Friday night when the storm came through, we were sitting there, and we could just hear a lot of wind, ferocious wind, and a lot of debris flying, and then we believe what was a couple of tornadoes came across, peeled their roofs off the top and just kind of like split the roof in half," she said.
Gartman says it was a wild ride.
"Yeah, it was just crazy; the people that lived upstairs came down and sheltered with us until everything passed. And it was just crazy. We have part of the scoreboard from the high school in the bushes. Luckily, all the cars were spared; nobody’s lives were taken, just a lot of property damage and a lot of displacement going on right now, and a lot of mixed feelings."
On this day, Gartman is at the apartment gathering the rest of her belongings.
"The city pretty much came in and said that we needed to get out as soon as possible," she said. "There is water damage between the walls and things like that, so you know. Our management team has worked tirelessly to get us into places. And that’s what we’re doing right now; we’re in the midst of moving and trying to get ourselves resituated.”
Gartman said it’s unfortunate that it sometimes takes a natural disaster to bring a community together, but she was grateful for the number of good people who’ve been stopping by offering help and bringing food and water.
Neighbors helping neighbors is exactly what Ivan Rosado and his wife were doing in their Pace neighborhood.
“This is the first lady, when we moved into this neighborhood almost 17 years ago, that came to my house, knocked on the door, and said, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood,’ you know," said Rosado. "Ever since then, we built a good relationship with her, and because she was older, we try to take care of her, you know.”
A couple of days after the storm, the Rosados were across the street hauling debris to the curb and working to remove a tree that fell on the roof of their elderly neighbor’s house.
It went into the house, into the back bathroom, so there’s a hole in the ceiling. The water went in and damaged some flooring inside. I know she’s devastated, but we try to do whatever we can. You know, our house didn’t get damaged, just a bunch of well cutting up; the same thing. But just trying to help her out, you know.”
Also in Pace, resident Frank Laritz and a friend were working on cutting down what was left of a sheared water oak in front of his mobile home, which he says he was smart to evacuate.
“Well, I had two limbs hit my mobile home and two holes in the top, some in the side, a busted window; not really bad, but still," he said.
As they were cutting it back, limb by limb, Laritz was already lamenting the loss of the tree.
"That was a beautiful tree right there. And I got everything else cut out of my yard except that one and these two, and they even snapped."
In his backyard, Laritz says all the big trees were taken out by the storm. Now he says every one of the trees left in his yard is coming down, so he won’t have any that can hit his house again.
“I’ve had enough of trees," he said. "I’ll take the hot sun. I’ll take the 120-degree weather.”
Since the storm passed, a lot of resources have been dispatched to the community to assist with hurricane recovery. Assistance has been wide-ranging, from the establishment of Points of Distribution or POD locations, feeding sites, access to showers and laundry facilities, and help with insurance.
The faith-based disaster relief organization Convoy of Hope has been distributing boxes of food, water, ice, and other supplies from their base of operations at Pace Assembly of God.
Joyce Richardson and her daughter Jenny, whose Woodbine Hills neighborhood was still without power as of mid-week, were among the hundreds who waited in their cars to get some of those much-needed supplies.
“Ice and water, because we had to throw everything out of our refrigerator and freezer, and outside freezer," said Jenny. "We lost everything.”
Also waiting for water and ice was Ron Stewart.
"I’ve been here in Florida for about 25 years now, so we’ve been through a few of these, and this stuff here, this always kind of gives you a little hope and humanity, you know, with what’s going on. It’s like, OK, there are people that still care, you know.”
Convoy of Hope will continue daily distributions through Saturday, with plans to — at that time — reevaluate whether to continue distributions or shift their efforts to assist with the hurricane cleanup effort.
