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Wilma Hits Elderly Residents Especially Hard
By Michael A. Scarcella and Cory Schouten, Herald Tribune
USA
November 1, 2005
Fidela Schiller, who turned 72 Friday, finds the sidewalk blocked by debris from Hurricane Wilma as she tries to push her husband, Gustav, 82, who has advanced Alzheimer's disease, to a bus stop in North Lauderdale on Friday. The bus never arrived. CORY SCHOUTEN / STAFF PHOTO
Florence McQueston, an 80-year-old cancer patient who lives by herself, just bought a one-way ticket to New Jersey.
The Lauderdale-by-the-Sea resident says she isn't going to put up with another major storm, not after Hurricane Wilma took off her apartment's roof, drenched her place and forced her and thousands of others to live without power on this barrier island.
"I have to get out of here," McQueston said Friday, tearing up at the thought of leaving her place.
Elderly residents on Florida's east coast are having a particularly rough time dealing with the effects of Hurricane Wilma several days after the storm tore up scores of houses and apartments and left millions without electricity.
Many of the elderly have been unable to get adequate supplies of ice, water and gas and have had to rely on the generosity of neighbors who drive to find and distribute essential items.
Those who can drive are reluctant to navigate intersections with no traffic signals. Many are staying indoors, listening to the radio, while others are out and about - cleaning up debris and searching for supplies.
Fidela Schiller turned 72 Friday, but instead of celebrating she planned to look for gas.
The North Lauderdale resident spent an hour and a half Friday waiting in the sun for a bus that never came. She pushed her husband's wheelchair over fallen branches to get to the bus stop.
He's 82 and has advanced Alzheimer's disease.
For a couple of days after the storm, they had no water and little food. Their flashlight died quickly, and there were no candles.
"Terrible, terrible," she said of the storm's aftermath. "We didn't have water. We didn't have electricity. We weren't prepared."
When her husband told her he was hungry, she told him he just ate. He wouldn't have been able to remember anyway.
"I'm all alone," she said. "I have no children, no friends, no family here."
Still, many elderly residents remained optimistic and said they plan to stay.
"You deal with what you're dealt," said 83-year-old Ed Martin of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. "I wouldn't say I'm doing fine, but I went through World War II, and room service during the war was lousy."
Checking on elderly and sick residents was one of the first priorities for Fort Lauderdale, city spokesman David Hebert said.
He said the city now has an adequate supply of oxygen and is working with local groups to check in on elderly residents and make sure hospitals and nursing homes have the supplies they need.
Ultimately, he said, the lack of power is the biggest problem.
Ofelia Barrueco has been feeling tired and sick and blames the lack of fresh air in her cramped apartment in Fort Lauderdale.
The sun has been beating down and the smell of garbage wafts in from open windows.
"I no feel good," said Barrueco, 71.
She escaped to a Winn-Dixie Friday afternoon to pick up a few cases of bottled water.
She also wanted to pick up batteries, so she could continue to listen to Cuban radio, but they were sold out.
The federal government set up more than a dozen ice and water distribution sites around the county in the days after the storm.
But many elderly can't physically wait in long lines for gas and other supplies. And many do not drive.
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was supposed to have a water and ice distribution center by Thursday, said Don King, a Broward county fire department battalion chief.
But he said on Friday that there's no certainty when the Federal Emergency Management Agency will arrive.
"It doesn't appear that most of the populace prepared for this storm," King said from darkened commission chambers at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea's town hall.
Most of the 6,000 residents of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea didn't evacuate.
On Friday, residents in the town were nailing a blue tarp to the roof of an apartment building.
George Hunsaker, 64, was pushing a wheelbarrow laden with tree debris and roof material.
He said he had not seen a town crew in the area to remove debris.
"I'm not going to wait for anyone," said Hunsaker, who has two artificial knees.
Friends invited him to stay in North Port after the storm, but Hunsaker said he didn't want to wait in a line to buy gas to drive across the state.
Connie Grey, 82, took up permanent residence in Fort Lauderdale Beach two years ago.
Her 80-year-old husband, who suffers from dementia, lives in a nursing home in Fort Lauderdale that is using an emergency generator.
She said she can't spend as much time with her husband because she's afraid of driving on streets with no traffic lights.
On Friday, at about noon, she gingerly stepped through a pile of large tree branches in the gutter to get to the local post office.
She peered inside. It was closed.
And so she set off, walking a short distance home.
At McQueston's one-bedroom, second-floor apartment on Poinciana Street, rain poured in during the storm.
"I was praying the whole time," said McQueston, who has been fighting bone marrow cancer for two years.
Before the storm hit Monday, McQueston froze water in small plastic tubs. But, by Friday, she had used that supply.
A local grocery store about a block away from her apartment got a shipment of ice Friday afternoon.
Neighbors have grilled up food a couple of times.
"This is the pits," McQueston said. "Everybody's feeling it. It's hard for many of us to cope."
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