ST. CLOUD, Sept. 6 In plaid pants, T-shirt and black Dodge gimme cap, Raymond Clark, 85, is mending a small ornamental windmill in his front yard on Bradley Drive.
The feet of his stepladder sink in the boggy grass as he climbs another rung. Around these parts, this is known as high ground. Other patches of his lawn look like small ponds, thanks to Hurricane Frances.
Tony and Roni Pierce keep plywood -- and an updated message -- over the windows of their house in Palm Bay, Fla.
(Angel Valentin -- Fort Lauderdale Sun-sentinel Via AP)
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_____Photo Gallery_____
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Frances Pounds Florida: Reduced for the moment from a hurricane to a tropical storm, Frances headed for the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Panhandle late Sunday afternoon.
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_____A Stormy Season_____
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Most Learn to Cope, but Some Talk of Leaving (The Washington Post, Sep 7, 2004)
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Floods Mean Some Must Keep Waiting for Power (The Washington Post, Sep 7, 2004)
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After Frances, a Slow Recovery (The Washington Post, Sep 7, 2004)
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Frances Weakens, but Drenches Fla. (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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Shelter From the Storm (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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Slow-Moving Frances Keeping Relief at Bay (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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Region's Workers Bound for Florida To Aid in Recovery (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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A Driving Desire To Be in Cars Despite Curfews (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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Frances Pummels Florida (The Washington Post, Sep 5, 2004)
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After Facing Charley, Floridians Gird for Round 2 (The Washington Post, Sep 5, 2004)
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Waiting For the Eye, And Ready To Blink (The Washington Post, Sep 5, 2004)
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2 Storms In Florida Not Seen As Trend (The Washington Post, Sep 3, 2004)
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Hurricane Paths of 2004 Season
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Clark estimates that the monumental storm and its offshoot bands of rain have dropped seven or eight inches on St. Cloud since Friday. And he is still recovering from Hurricane Charley, which swept across Florida from the opposite direction just three weeks earlier and ripped the roof from his enclosed patio.
Hurricane Charley was compact, fast-moving and made of wind. Frances, on the other hand, was morbidly obese, lumbering and made of water. The paths of the two storms met at this crossroads, Clark says. And now there is talk of Hurricane Ivan heading for the same star-crossed spot.
"I'm thinking of selling the goddamn place and moving away," says Clark, a retired machinist from Erie, Pa.
He chose to live in this quiet little neighborhood, a melange of concrete block homes and mobile homes, in 1981. Over the years he has put his quirky stamp on his abode. The family name is written in large letters across the front of the house. Yard art abounds. Posts on either side of the driveway display models of bears, rabbits and foxes. A plywood cutout of a gardener sits here; flowers bloom over there. American flags are pasted in several windows. Such stuff dreams are made on.
But there is no time for reverie. There is much work to be done in the wake of the two storms, Clark says. While Frances moves on to the Florida Panhandle and beyond, the storm's effects here continue. Violent squalls come in waves. Tornado warnings pop up here and there. The sky spits rain. The electricity is still off. Clark climbs down from the ladder, excuses himself and steps inside. The generator in his carport hums like a mighty wind.
Throughout St. Cloud and much of the rest of Florida, folks can't help but compare Frances and Charley. This storm did this; that storm did that. Everywhere the devastation is evident, even if the culprit is not. Charlie's Restaurant Meat-A-Rama just off of Irlo Bronson Highway has collapsed into itself like a white dwarf star. The roof of Chubby's transmission shop has been peeled back like the top of a sardine can. Side streets are walled in by piles of fallen branches.
David Cooper, 46, who is a machine operator for a company that makes plastic soda bottles, says Charley didn't do a bit of harm to his cheery yellow-and-white trailer in the center of St. Cloud. But Frances turned his lovely aluminum portico into a homely scrapheap.
In the Land of the Sun subdivision nearby, George Critchlow, 69, is still picking up after Charley. In work clothes and gloves, he loads a small trailer with large oak branches and carts them to the street.
"We only lost a window during Frances," he says, pointing to the front of his three-bedroom, ranch-style brick home. People in St. Cloud and Osceola County agree that neither storm was as bad as the tornadoes in 1998 that killed more than 40 people in the area. One leveled a shopping center within a stone's throw of Critchlow's home. But the parade of hurricanes is growing tiresome.
The Cracker House Saloon near the Florida Turnpike is hurting from when Charley met Frances. The front door is broken and a large corner of the roof has fallen. But a red neon sign reads "OPEN." Inside there is a Confederate flag draped over a small bandstand, and opinionated bumper stickers -- one reads "Gun Control Is Being Able to Hit Your Target" -- paper the wall behind the bar.
Friendly bartender Jocie Tolliver, 41, says it's important that the saloon be open for thirsty people. She's wearing a black tank top and jeans. Her blond hair is tucked beneath a Budweiser cap and she sports an artful lion's head tattoo on one shoulder.
Overhead, people work between rainstorms to fix the holes in the roof. Tolliver explains that winds from Charley felled a beloved old oak. The trunk crashed into the side of the dark-wood saloon and weakened the ceiling. Frances added insult to injury by tearing through the roof and sending rain into the bar.
