[Rhodes22-list] FLORIDA RESPONSE BY ROGER!

[ed kroposki]

Roger:

Your report should be published in the press.  Consider writing it over for
the local paper and maybe the associated press.  Why?  Because it provides
the best discussion of the situation that I have seen.  It also points out
how church's really do help people in need.  Contrary to opinions expressed
on this list in the past about how useless churches are.

With all the political rhetoric this type of story has been dismissed as not
important.  If you would please also consider posting your report on other
regional email list.  We all could use this type insight to what it is like.
It sounds like they still need help.  

If you have information on how and through whom your group was organized and
reported to who in Florida, please post as others might be willing to
assist.

Again, thank you for your post.
Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA


-----Original Message-----
From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org
[mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of Roger Pihlaja
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 12:06 AM
To: The Rhodes 22 mail list
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Florida Disater Response Trip

Hi Everybody,

I'm back from Florida.  We left about 11:30 AM on Friday, straight thru with
7 drivers taking turns, and got home about 2:30 PM on Saturday.  That's
about 27 hours of driving &/or riding in a vehicle except for pit stops!

As you know, my group was working in the Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda, FL
area, which is on the Gulf coast, about 1/3 of the way up the Florida
peninsula.  Hurricane Charlie made landfall in the Port Charlotte/Punta
Gorda area.  We also spent two days working in the Arcadia, FL area, which
is an agricultural town about 25 miles inland from Port Charlotte, FL.
Considering we were there nearly 3 months after hurricane Charlie, the
amount of remaining damage is just heart breaking!  The waiting time to get
a new roof is something like 6 - 8 months.  Most damaged roofs have blue
poly tarps nailed on them to at least semi waterproof them until something
more permanent can be done.

After 27-1/2 hours of driving, we arrived at Peace Lutheran Church (PLC) in
Port Charlotte, FL on Saturday afternoon, 10/16/2004.  After we got unpacked
& had a chance to take a shower, Jean Etsinger, the regional coordinator for
Florida Lutheran Disaster Response, gave us a safety briefing, had us sign
personal injury liability waiver forms, & gave us a list of jobs.  We had
the rest of Saturday evening off to relax & recover from the long drive down
from Michigan.  After dinner, we drove around the area a little bit just to
see what things looked like & get familiar with the lay of the land.  It's
somewhat hard to find your way around because a lot of the street signs were
destroyed & have not been replaced yet.  A lot of businesses had their signs
destroyed as well.  All 7 of us slept on the floor of the PLC nursery, a
room about 15 ft. X 25 ft.  Some of the crew brought cots; but, I just had
my sleeping bag & air mattress.

We attended early worship service at PLC on Sunday morning.  After church,
we went to a trailer park to help a member of the PLC congregation move some
of his stuff from his mobile home into storage.  The guy we helped was a
retired elderly gentleman who lived there with his wife.  He was a diabetic,
had just had foot surgery, and he was only getting around on crutches or a
wheelchair.  His trailer was slated for complete demolition.  Hurricane
Charlie had only left two exterior walls standing anyway!  The only large
items we were able to salvage were a hot tub & a central A/C unit.  The
trailer park looked like an aluminum & plywood wasteland.  Probably 80% -
90% of the trailers will have to be demolished in that trailer park and
there were lots of other trailer parks in similar condition.  

After the trailer park, we went to the home of an elderly woman with
fibro-mialga, also quite helpless.  This was the only indoor job we had all
week.  Hurricane Charlie had damaged her roof & she had water damage.  Her
carpeting was slated for replacement.  We removed all the 1/4 round
baseboard moldings in order to get ready for the carpet installation crew.
Behind some of the baseboards, we found mold & mildew growing.  So, we
disinfected the walls behind the baseboard moldings where ever we found mold
growing.  A couple of us also crawled up into the attic to inspect the
insulation & HVAC ductwork for water damage & mold.  It was REALLY hot up
there.  Fortunately, we didn't find any mold in the attic.  But, we did have
to reattach some of the fiberglass insulation around her HVAC ductwork using
duck tape.

On Monday and Tuesday, we worked to clear approximately 2 acres of land
behind the Pilgrim United Church of Christ (PUCC).  The PUCC was installing
a couple of mobile homes on that land in order that future disaster recovery
crews will have a place to stay while they are in the area.  The land we
cleared was heavily brushy and wooded and there were a lot of storm damaged
trees as well as living trees that all had to come out.  All 7 of our crew
worked at this site all day on Monday.  On Tuesday, we split up into two
crews.  Three of us, including me, went back to the PUCC site to finish
clearing the land.  The other four members of our crew handled a couple of
other smaller jobs in the Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda, FL area.

The area of Florida we were working in had 3 common species of large trees;
southern pine, live oak, and various varieties of palm trees.  The most
common hurricane failure mode for the southern pines was snapping off the
trunk about 10-20 ft. above the ground.  If the top half of the tree broke
off cleanly; then, neither the remaining tall stump or the top half with all
of the needles was any problem to cut up with a chain saw into manageable
pieces.  However, often the top half of the tree did not snap off cleanly.
Instead, frequently the top half only failed thru about 70% - 80% of the
diameter of the trunk and the top half folded over on top of the stump.
This left a damaged, unbalanced, potentially very dangerous tree to cut
down, with a large heavy mass hanging by a thread directly overhead while
you were working on the trunk.  The live oaks have a very extensive,
"bushy", branch system and can grow to be very old & massive trees.  In the
sandy Florida soil, the live oaks tended to be uprooted and ended up blown
over with a large unstable "root ball" of soil & roots.  The problem with
this scenario was the weight of the tree was now at least partially
supported by the branches.  Cutting up such a tree was like playing a real
life, potentially dangerous, game of "Jenga".  You had to guess which
branches could be safely cut away without causing the rest of the tree to
collapse to the ground, with you trapped in the midst of the branch
structure!  Just like in the game of Jenga, the 1st several cuts were
obvious and easy.  The safest strategy was to cut away as much of the mass
of the tree as well as remove as many of the entangling branches before
cutting any of the branches that might be supporting any load.  Finally, you
got down to the "interesting" part and started cutting away the supporting
branches from the top of the tree and worked your way progressively down to
the base.  You always wanted to be certain to have an escape route in case
the tree started to shift or roll over as the branch you were cutting
started to fail.  Eventually, the trunk fell to the ground and removal of
the rest of the tree was fairly straightforward.  The palm trees tended to
get uprooted.  However, they didn't have the extensive branching structure
of the live oaks and were not as big a problem to remove.  The most
dangerous situations occurred when any of the above scenarios occurred in
close proximity to other trees.  Safely untangling two or more storm
damaged, entangled trees is truly frightening, especially after the trees
had been left to dry out and rot in the hot Florida sun for nearly 3 months!
In the lumbering industry, situations such as the above are collectively
known as "widowmakers" and are a major reason why lumberjack is considered
one of the most dangerous professions.  Every time I started working on one
of these widowmakers, I would pray, "Oh God, please let everything go
properly with this one!  Please don't let any of us get hurt!"  and I would
say a little prayer of thanksgiving after every one.  I haven't been so
consistently frightened while working on anything for a long time!  It
definitely tends to keep you focused.  I'm pleased to report that, other
than minor scrapes & bruises and some insect bites, nobody in our crew
sustained any injuries.  The other type of wood that I got a lot of
experience cutting up was bamboo, which grows like a weed in Florida.
Bamboo wood is very tough and fibrous and the hollow stalks are frequently
full of water.  I've never cut anything with a chain saw that tended to bind
the blade & cause the saw to kick back as fiercely as bamboo.  You had
really hang on to the chain saw, lest it kick back into your face!  The
chain flung the dirty water all over when it cut into the interior cavity of
the bamboo stalks.  I'm trying not to think about what might have been in
that water and I tried very hard not to inhale or swallow any!  All this
made cutting bamboo stalks very tiring work and hard on the chain saw as
well.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we drove about 25 miles inland to the town of
Arcadia, FL.  This agricultural community is home to a large population of
migrant farm workers and the standard of construction was not as high as in
the more affluent communities down on the Gulf coast.  Despite being well
inland, the level of destruction from hurricane Charlie was incredible, even
nearly 3 months after the event!  Disaster relief in this area was being
coordinated by the Methodist Church in Arcadia, FL.  Our crew would receive
our assignments in the morning at the Arcardia Methodist Church.  We would
work all morning and go back to the church between 12:00 - 1:00 PM for
lunch.  After lunch, we would get our afternoon work assignments, work all
afternoon, and report back around 5:00 PM to update the church staff on the
day's progress.  On both days, we split up into 2 crews in order to
accomplish more projects within the limited time.  At the Arcadia Methodist
Church, we encountered many other groups of hurricane relief workers.  Some
of these groups looked very neat and spiffy with matching T-shirts and
driving in big church vans or even buses.  Dressed in our grubby work
clothes, we felt like the hillbillies from "up north".  The weird thing was
that, somehow, these folks managed to stay very neat and clean.  By lunch
time, I would come back to the Arcadia Methodist Church covered in pine sap,
oily wood chips, and smelling of sweat & 2-cycle exhaust smoke and these
folks all looked neat and fresh as daisies!  I don't know what kind of
disaster response they were doing.  But, if I ever do this again; then, I
want to be a member of that kind of "work" party!

On Friday morning, we did the tourist thing and drove around the Port
Charlotte/Punta Gorda, FL area taking pictures.  Then, it was time to hit
the road for the long drive home.

The weather was pretty cooperative, mostly sunny every day with afternoon
temperatures in the mid to upper 80's deg F.  We had a couple of brief
afternoon rain showers, which didn't have much effect on the temperature;
but, did make the humidity soar.  The Florida sun was fierce & I used lots
of SPF 40 sunblock.  Despite being a Yankee, I found I could function in the
heat and humidity as long as I was careful to keep myself well-hydrated.  I
probably needed about 16 oz of water per hour spent outside working in these
conditions.  Of course, we were doing heavy work clearing land.  Other, less
strenuous projects might not require as much water.  The only insects we ran
into were fire ants; but, they were just about everywhere.  I wore long
pants, steel toed work boots, used lots of insect repellent, and watched
where I stepped.  I didn't get stung; but, other members of our crew took
several bites.  I was expecting lots more spiders, mosquitoes, and other
biting insects; but, they weren't much of a problem.  Despite canals
everywhere that looked like perfect alligator habitat, we didn't see any.
We did see some snakes & it's good to wear long pants and HD boots.  The
root balls of uprooted trees were home to a wide variety of critters, which
usually scattered as soon as the chain saw started up.

Well, that's what my week in Florida was like.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium   



     


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