Aftermath of the 2004 Hurricanes in Florida

In 2,004, Francis and Jeanne hit back-to-back on the Atlantic coast and swept across the lower part of the Florida panhandle, but they spared our soon to be vacation mobile home. The carport was gone, and so was the shed, both indispensable commodities for this kind of vacation home. During the search for replacement items and materials, my husband and I experienced the meaning of drowning in excess first hand.

On that first year when we finally arrived in Florida after the twenty-two hour drive from Ohio, we threaded what seemed forever around myriad orange traffic cones. An eternity passed before we could see our new place. Backhoes with buckets rising all around dredged up imagery of dinosaurs moving amongst a primordial tropical forest.

Though our neighbors in the manufactured home community were well underway with the cleanup by the time we arrived, the devastation was still very obvious. I could only imagine the whole story when I looked at the top of a forty-foot pine tree and saw a large piece of mangled aluminum dangling perilously from the highest branches.

Other indicators of the severe damage showed wardrobes strewn out in the street. Jewelry boxes smashed to smithereens splayed the beads of costume jewelry amongst underwear and other clothing plastered flat and wet on the pavement. Soaked couches and torn wicker sat in piles on screenless lanais waiting for the backhoe to deal the final blow to their previously happy life. Excess household items that could have helped a lot of the displaced hurricane victims awaited the same ghastly fate as the couches and lanais. Two years passed before the bulk of the rebuilding was completed