Aug
19
Island castaways waited in tattered luxury
Filed Under hurricane, single stories | Comments Off
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
SANIBEL AND CAPTIVA ISLANDS – For five days, only rescue crews and city workers were allowed onto these peaceful barrier islands.
Beach cottages sat empty. Tourist shops were dark. And in newspaper boxes, headlines were frozen on the day of the hurricane.
“CHARLEY THREATENS,” the papers warned.
After days of waiting and worrying, residents were allowed back Wednesday. They lined up before 7 a.m. and streamed onto the islands after law enforcement officials opened the bridge.
“Welcome home,” a deputy said, waving the cars through.
On islands featuring whimsical names such as Hurricane House and Tropical Winds, residents found windows shattered, cabanas ripped and patio furniture flung onto tennis courts.
Although some homes on Sanibel were badly damaged, the island’s landmarks survived. The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, the Old Schoolhouse Theater and the buildings at the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge were sound.
At Bailey’s General Store, 83-year-old owner Francis Bailey chatted with residents who stopped by for hardware, food and supplies. Bailey’s father founded the store in 1899 and ran it until his death in 1948.
Francis, who has run the store with his brother for half a century, said he wanted to evacuate but decided to stay with the family store. He said he needed to save his inventory and reopen quickly to help stranded residents and rescue workers.
“If I didn’t have anything to protect, I’d have gone to Nebraska,” he said.
He left the store for his home on Friday afternoon, two hours before the hurricane made landfall. But his brother Sam, 80, and a skeleton crew weathered the hurricane inside the store.
At 7 a.m. Saturday, they opened for business.
They used a flashlight and added up the totals with a calculator. They didn’t have much change, so they just rounded off.
Power at Bailey’s was restored Monday, and two days later it was still a rare oasis of cool air. Residents paused after stepping through the sliding glass doors Wednesday, basking in the chill. Then they rushed to greet Bailey, hugging him and shaking his hand.
He stayed busy, giving away ice and displaying trays of pastries.
“Baked fresh this morning,” he said.
The storm turned those who didn’t evacuate into castaways, completely cut off from the mainland. National Guard officers locked down the island to prevent looting, asking residents to stay on their property.
One group of 13 stayed at the ‘Tween Waters Inn. The historic hotel is at Captiva Island’s narrowest point, only about 500 yards between the gulf and Roosevelt Channel.
If the water had surged, it would have left the hotel flooded. But owner Tony Lapi said he knew the buildings could withstand the winds. He gathered everyone into the newest building and listened to broadcasts.
The holdouts braced themselves inside. Palm trees flew by like arrows, said John Webster, who takes care of a house on Captiva and sought refuge in the hotel.
The wind started rattling the sliding glass door, so they moved to a hallway in the center of the building. But then the wind whipped blades off the ceiling fans and hurled them down the hall, Webster said.
When the storm subsided, they found branches toppled and a lattice ripped apart. At the resort’s marina, called The Canoe and The Kayak, a sailboat from a nearby home was wrecked against the dock.
“We’re thinking of renaming it The Canoe, The Kayak and The Sailboat,” Lapi said.
The group ate chips and drank juice from the snack bar and bathed in the swimming pool.
A chef prepared prime rib and stuffed veal from the resort’s restaurant. All in all, Lapi said, it wasn’t too bad. The hotel should be able to reopen soon, and nobody was hurt.
“It could have been a tornado. We could have lived in Oklahoma. Think of that.”
Chuck and Elaine Smith, originally from Boynton Beach, stayed with four others in one of the 70 vacation properties they manage on Captiva Island.
They defied the evacuation order, saying they needed to protect their property and assess the damage after the storm.
They chose to stay in one of the imposing mansions they rent on the north end of the island. It is like a fortress, they said, and was built only a few months ago.
Stephanie and Steve Carlson, who own the Mucky Duck restaurant, joined the Smiths at the vacation home. Before leaving, they packed up a baby turtle named Egbert and fished seven adult turtles from a pond outside their home.
The turtles seem to be recovering from the excitement, Stephanie said Wednesday. “They’re really quite calm now.”
During the storm, a sign came to rest in front of the vacation house. They propped it up later in the front drive, where they sat on patio furniture and fishing buckets.
“This Area Protected By Neighborhood Watch,” it said.
For the past five days, they bathed with the runoff water from their ice, and they flushed toilets with water from the hot tub. To amuse themselves, they played bridge and drank cocktails. They waved at the soldiers patrolling in Humvees and all-terrain vehicles.
“It was a hoot,” Elaine Smith said.
When the hurricane hit, Nancy Irion was on the second day of a three-day cruise off the coast of Maine. She had the boat drop her at the nearest port and took a ferry to the mainland. She got a cab to her car, then drove three days to Captiva.
She went out on her bicycle Wednesday, winding through downed trees to look for her husband’s grave. He died of leukemia three years ago, and she was afraid the marker had flown away.
She thought the grave might be easy to find. She had draped it with the purple collar of her English setter Bobbi, who died soon after her husband. Bobbi loved her husband, she said, and missed him a lot when he died. The dog was killed one day when she wandered into the street, looking for him.
Irion had to get over a lot of brush to get into the cemetery. But the purple collar was still on the marker, and the marker was still standing.
She lifted the collar off the grave and brought it back to her house in the basket of her bicycle.
Much of the house was damaged. The porch where she often went to enjoy the view of the bay was ripped off the house, her sofa and old-fashioned chaise thrown to the ground. She lost pictures of her husband’s funeral and gifts of crystal from his mother.
“I got hit pretty hard, but it’s OK,” she said.
All around, the canopy of pines that shaded all of Captiva was destroyed. It was once a beautiful place, she said. “My husband loved this island,” she said. “Loved the island.”
Copyright 2004 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 19, 2004 Thursday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION, Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1094 words