By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

LANTANA – Before the court order that separated Bert Sayre from his family and forced him into isolation, he had no idea what was making him so sick.

And at first, neither did the doctors. But by last May, the roofer from Tampa was too weak to lift his daughter, then only 3 years old.

On his third trip to his third hospital, he finally got the diagnosis. He had tuberculosis, a disease that is now rare in the United States but was once the nation’s leading cause of death.

The antibiotics that doctors prescribed to treat Sayre made him sick, and an emergency room doctor told him they were killing his liver. Sayre was afraid he would die.

The Florida Department of Health judged his disease a threat to the public and said he may have caused the complications by drinking. Sayre denied that and fought commitment because he didn’t want to leave his daughter. After a Hillsborough County court hearing where Sayre said everyone wore a mask, a judge ordered Sayre to A.G. Holley State Hospital.

Sayre, 52, lived for months in an isolation room inside the hospital while he was contagious. He wasn’t the most cooperative patient at first.

“Believe me, I am an ornery old cuss,” he said.

Doctors there confirmed that conventional medications were hurting his liver, even at the locked hospital, where he had no way to drink. They saved his life, Sayre said, by finding another drug that worked. Now, after eight months of treatment, he is leading bingo games to help pass his remaining time inside the hospital.

Sayre said he was in disbelief when he heard that during the state’s legislative session, House Healthcare Council Chairman Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, proposed closing A.G. Holley to save money.

“You don’t understand how dangerous this disease is, until you get it,” Sayre said.

Instead of shutting down the hospital, Bean added a last-minute amendment to the state budget that requires the state to privatize the 50-bed hospital, built on Lantana Road in 1950.

The state last week asked parties interested in redeveloping the property to notify the state by June 9.

Legislators including Bean and state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach, have said Florida should look at models in other states to see how they care for tuberculosis patients.

But health directors in other states, who are struggling to isolate and treat people who carry dangerous strains of the disease, say Florida’s hospital in Lantana is the envy of the nation.

States across the country have laws that allow judges or health department doctors to lock up people who could spread tuberculosis but refuse to take medication or wear a mask.

With no facility like A.G. Holley, some states, including California, confine people to motel rooms and post guards outside the door to keep them from leaving. And in other states, jails and prisons are the only option for contagious people who won’t cooperate.

Arizona made national news and faced an expensive lawsuit in 2007 when it committed tuberculosis patient Robert Daniels to a jail cell for months with no phone, windows, shower or television.

Dr. Karen Lewis, tuberculosis control officer for Arizona, said state health officials have “looked to A.G. Holley as a wonderful model of what we as a state would love to have.”

In Georgia, which confines about six tuberculosis patients a year by court order, health officials have to rely on local jails and a private prison hospital. The state would be “very interested” in paying to send its own patients to A.G. Holley if the two states could work out payment arrangements, spokeswoman Taka Wiley said.

“If it were possible, we would strongly consider an agreement with A.G. Holley Hospital,” she said.

In other states, there is often financial pressure to release patients before they are fully cured, said Dr. Lee Reichman, executive director of the New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute.

“I wish I had an A.G. Holley Hospital here,” he said.

Many of A.G. Holley’s patients complain about the hospital because they don’t like to be locked up, Sayre said, but they don’t realize how lucky they are.

“You think you are in jail,” he said. “But I know I don’t want to be in jail. I want to be right here in this bed with my remote, getting better. In jail, they treat you like a leper.”

A.G. Holley’s doctors are experts on the disease, while many general physicians “just don’t have the knowledge,” Sayre said.

The hospital’s medical executive director, Dr. David Ashkin, says polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans support isolating people with deadly communicable diseases who don’t accept treatment.

“But if we are saying as a society that we need to protect the public from this person,” Ashkin said, “don’t we owe it to that person to give them the best care possible?”

However, the hospital no longer needs such a large building or the surrounding land, and the town of Lantana has long worked with the state on a plan that would preserve the tuberculosis treatment program while attracting a medical research complex to the site. Dale Brill, who heads Gov. Charlie Crist’s Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development, is overseeing development plans.

Brill said A.G. Holley is a “world-class facility” and did not ask Bean to write the budget amendment that privatized it. A draft of Brill’s invitation to bid for development of the land requires that any private institution taking over the tuberculosis program retain or at least give hiring priority to current workers, have 10 years of public health experience, be “intimately involved” with protecting the public from tuberculosis and take orders on patient care from the state.

The program could stay on the same land in Lantana, move elsewhere in Florida or become part of a teaching hospital.

Patients at A.G. Holley are confined to isolation rooms, where negative pressure keeps contaminated air from leaving, until they are no longer contagious. Patients who are contagious are required to wear masks when they walk through the hospital. They also may go outdoors, where the disease doesn’t spread because of the air and sunlight.

After patients stop coughing bacteria into the air, they can take off their masks and spend time in the hospital’s recreation room, which has television, video games and pool. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups are available, and the hospital offers arts and crafts, including crocheting.

Patients who earn the trust of administrators and are no longer contagious may leave for fishing trips, entertainment and church.

In 2007, the state of Florida reported 980 tuberculosis cases. When told they have a potentially fatal disease, most people faithfully take medication over several months until they are cured. But a small percentage refuse. Others get sick when they combine the TB medications, which are processed in the liver, with drugs or alcohol.

Difficult patients are potential incubators for new, dangerous forms of tuberculosis. When people start taking the drugs but stop before they are fully cured, the strongest bacteria survive. The patient then develops a more dangerous, drug-resistant strain that can be spread to as many as 30 people over time. Each case of tuberculosis resistant to conventional drugs can take up to $500,000 and a year or more to treat.

Awsha Sanders, 26, was ordered to A.G. Holley against her will on Feb. 26. She said she has long been obsessed with cleanliness, but couldn’t avoid germs at the homeless shelter in Tampa, where she saw women coughing blood into the sink.

She lost a baby at five months because she was so sick with tuberculosis. Health department workers tried to give her drugs, often coming to meet her in local parks.

When they said she had missed 18 doses, she was ordered to A.G. Holley.

Sanders said she fought commitment because she doesn’t like to be held captive. But she is glad she came.

“God knows where I would have been, or how much sicker I would have been,” she said.

Sayre thinks he probably caught tuberculosis from another roofer.

It was the first he had heard of the disease since he was tested in school as a little kid.

“You think it’s only overseas,” he said. “But anyone can get this.”

He is scheduled to be released soon and hopes the state will preserve the same high standards for the patients who come after him.

If they don’t, he said, “people are going to die. And they are going to spread it like wildfire.”

About tuberculosis

> The disease was once called consumption, because it seems to eat away at the body, causing weakness and severe weight loss. The bacteria attack the lungs, causing a bloody cough.

> Tuberculosis is not as contagious as the measles or chicken pox, but medical experts estimate that one person can spread the airborne disease to up to 30 people over time.

> Though about one in three people worldwide carry the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, only one in every 10 who have the bacteria will get sick.

> The disease was once the leading cause of death in the United States, and many states are now grappling with drug-resistant strains.

Treatment in the U.S.

How other states handle contagious tuberculosis patients who refuse to cooperate with treatment:

> California: Uses guards to keep patients inside hospital rooms, motel rooms or the patients’ homes. Tuberculosis patients who are mentally ill can be sent to the state’s psychiatric hospital.

> North Carolina: Patients who repeatedly refuse treatment can be criminally prosecuted as ‘health law violators.’ They are sent to one of three prisons.

> Texas: Replacing its 1953 state tuberculosis hospital with a $35.2 million, 75-bed facility.

> New Mexico: Has an agreement to send patients to Texas.

> Massachusetts: Opened a 12-bed wing for tuberculosis inside a public hospital.

> Missouri: Has eight beds inside a university hospital dedicated to tuberculosis patients.

> Georgia: Has special rooms in local jails or a private prison.

> New Jersey: Has isolation rooms in a teaching hospital.

Copyright 2008 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 25, 2008 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1,659 words

WEST PALM BEACH – Two by two and flock by flock, animals at the Palm Beach Zoo will move to shelter today.

Zookeepers plan to shepherd hundreds of animals to safety in advance of Hurricane Wilma, taking care to keep predators away from prey. Bears probably will move in with cranes, and the tiger will camp with kangaroos.

Like Noah before the great flood, zoo workers will keep pairs of the same species together. Animals seem to stay calmer if they have a companion, said Keith Lovett, living collections director at the zoo.

Nearly all of the species survived Hurricanes Jeanne and Frances last year and should be just fine, he said. Some of the larger animals, like llamas, tapirs and the tortoise, simply sit down to wait out the storms. “Nothing is going to blow around a 600-pound tortoise,” Lovett said.

But hurricanes are difficult for some species not bred for South Florida weather. Asian songbirds had to be kept inside last year because their habitat was destroyed, and a few died of illnesses exacerbated by the stress. High-strung animals like emus and white-tailed deer panicked. The kangaroos bounced off without looking and crashed into fences and trees, Lovett said.

“Their normal instinct is to flee. They just don’t think,” he said.

Animals that need protection will ride out the storm with zoo workers in the restaurant and a second building. Last year, the workers treated a few animals for minor injuries – and saved the life of one diabetic ferret. The small animal went into a seizure during the storm, but recovered when workers were able to administer sugar water.

Zookeepers probably will leave more of the larger animals outside, where they will be in familiar surroundings. Nearly all have some type of shelter in their enclosures, where they can hide from the rain.

Tropical animals seem particularly well-adapted to the weather and might do best outside, Lovett said. Flamingos simply lie down under the water in a storm, using their long necks like snorkels to breathe.

And some animals behaved so badly in the shelter that they will not be invited back. One rooster in particular crowed every three minutes as slow, soggy Hurricane Frances stalled over the coast.

“Needless to say, there will be no rooster this year,” Lovett said.

Last year’s hurricanes decimated habitats and landscaping, closing the zoo for 10 weeks. Officials hope they will be able to reopen more quickly this time around. They are worried about the storm’s timing, with the annual Halloween event, Boo at the Zoo, scheduled to start Friday.

But as usual, Lovett said, the people at the zoo probably are more concerned than the animals.

The prairie dogs have proved to be resilient Florida transplants. They go into their holes to hide from the wind, then pop up their heads to look around.

As soon as Wilma passes, they will go back to work rebuilding their homes, Lovett said.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
October 23, 2005 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 3C
LENGTH: 480 words

By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN

We careened from storm to storm for six weeks here in Florida, complaining about our bland hurricane food.

I couldn’t seem to get rid of our three cases of energy bars bought before Hurricane Ivan. I tried to choke them down, but they tasted like vitamins and dry oatmeal. None of my friends would take them.

Then I was sent to Haiti to cover the catastrophic flooding caused by what then was Tropical Storm Jeanne. I filled my suitcase with bottled water and dozens of energy bars, just in case.

I had no idea how valuable they would be.

By the time we arrived in Gonaives, the city was desperate for food. Looters mobbed relief trucks. United Nations troops used riot shields to hold people back when bags of rice arrived.

Five days after the floods, a dozen men crowded our SUV and demanded food or money. Our translator hesitated, unsure of what we should do. One man got angry, shouting through the driver-side window. It looked as if the crowd was growing.

From the back seat, it looked as if the men might mob our SUV. I rifled through my suitcase and came up with a fistful of the energy bars. We handed them out the window.

We need to go, I said. Just drive. Go.

The men still were fighting over the bars as we pulled away.

That same day, I slipped a bottle of water and two more bars to another man who was helping to give us directions. He gulped down the first one in two bites, and slipped the second one carefully into his pocket.

Then he nodded thank you, over and over.

I ate the energy bars myself for most meals in Haiti. But I didn’t pull them out until we got out of the disaster area, and I drank my water only when I thought nobody was looking. I didn’t want to call too much attention to our SUV.

But mostly, I was just embarrassed to have so much.

Death in the rain

From the weather maps, it is not easy to see how Jeanne could have left more than 1,500 people dead in Haiti’s third-largest city.

The storm came ashore in Martin County as a powerful Category 3, and killed only a few people. Its tropical storm-force winds barely scraped the northeastern edge of Haiti, at least 50 miles from Gonaives. Flimsy houses built from tin still were standing.

But the forests all have been cut for charcoal, and people have settled in dry riverbeds. When the water comes, there is nothing to stop it. Life in Haiti is so tenuous, so fragile, that thousands could die just from rain.

After the storms in Florida, people dragged the trash from their ruined homes. Everywhere homes flooded, soggy mattresses, broken toasters and old dolls sat by the side of the road. Some left signs after a week went by, begging trash collectors to take them.

In Gonaives, almost nothing was thrown away.

There, where people survive by selling things that people in richer countries no longer want, women sat for hours trying to scrub plastic cups. Small children dug into mud stained ruddy brown from sewage, pulling out anything they thought they could use.

One man dipped a radio into the floodwater again and again, washing it with his hands. Muddy water poured from the sides, and the cord dangled limp in the water.

I thought about that later, and wondered why a man would clean a broken radio. A veteran correspondent explained to me that a radio is a status symbol, broken or not. The man probably planned to display it on a shelf, he said.

This, he could tell his visitors, is the radio that I once had.

Order vs. chaos

Less than a week after I saw U.N. troops fire a warning shot into the air to prevent a food station riot, I went to cover hurricane relief efforts at the South Florida Fairgrounds.

The wait was long, and the trucks were late. But compared with the chaos of Haiti, it was a wonder to behold.

The crowds were managed with the cheer and efficiency of an Orlando theme park. Deputies directed traffic and kept cars in orderly lines. Cheerleaders bounced and waved, and a furry Miami Dolphins mascot handed out water with his fins. Volunteers counted cars, popped trunks and dropped in ice and water. People who are used to making it on their own thanked the workers, saying they were grateful for the help.

In a small way, the storm gave us sense of what it is like to be poor in the United States. The phone lines weren’t predictable, and the power was off. We lived in motels, waited at laundromats and slept on the floor. We waited for government aid.

But most of us still lived better than the Haitian elite in the best of times. And we have help that the flood victims of Gonaives could not imagine.

We have leaders who need our votes and come promising billions of dollars. We have emergency food stamps and FEMA and free ice at the fairgrounds. We have ambulances and antibiotics. We can go to Publix and pick from a hundred different kinds of rice.

Four hurricanes have knocked us down this year, and more may come.

But we are still so lucky to live here.

Copyright 2004 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
October 3, 2004 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: OPINION, Pg. 1E
LENGTH: 835 words

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

FORT MYERS – When Thomas Edison scouted locations for his winter home in the late 1800s, he considered the possibility of tropical storms.

So the inventor chose a high spot, 15 feet above sea level and much of the surrounding land. He built on a bend in the Caloosahatchee River, east of barrier islands that would shelter his land from the fiercest winds.

“He was a very smart man,” said Chris Pendleton, president and chief executive officer of the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, as she worked to clean up the area Sunday.

Edison’s prudent planning, she said, helped the historic home weather a hurricane more than a century later.

The storm’s winds snapped rubber trees and bamboo plants Edison had used to make filaments for light bulbs. A tree fell on the roof of a caretaker’s cottage for the Henry Ford home next door.

All the other historic buildings were untouched. Many orchids were still clinging to trees after the storm.

The estate’s banyan tree, which caretakers call the second largest in the world, lost only a few leaves.

“We cannot believe it. It’s almost like nothing happened over there,” Pendleton said.

She hopes to resume tours later this week, as soon as the power is restored and debris cleared. The site usually has about 500 visitors a day, and loses $7,000 to $10,000 a day in gift sales and admission fees when closed.

Pendleton, who went to Lake Worth High School and lived for nearly two decades in Palm Beach County, said workers prepared exhaustively for three days before the storm hit. Workers moved replica boats, vintage automobiles, period furniture and antiques to storage sites inland.

The biggest loss, Pendleton said, was the plants. Edison was interested in botany and practical applications of plants. His wife filled the garden with gardenias and orchids.

It’s heartbreaking to see some of those die, Pendleton said, but the clearing will bring the estate closer to the way it looked when Edison lived.

Some of the damage was mysteriously selective, Pendleton said. Though the storm knocked a tree onto the caretaker’s house, it merely shook a few green grapefruits from trees just yards away. Limbs were blown down, but Edison’s dock was fine. Mrs. Edison’s birdhouses, stuck in shallow water to protect them from cats, were intact.

Copyright 2004 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 16, 2004 Monday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION, Pg. 16A
LENGTH: 387 words

PUNTA GORDA – Charles Kidd woke up early and went to church Sunday morning, as he always does.

His home was gone, along with all the possessions he accumulated during 58 years of marriage. But the retired Navy man still rose to greet worshipers at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, showing them the way into the darkened building.

He apologized for his casual shirt and shorts.

“Normally, I wear a suit,” he said.

Few parishioners knew whether the church would hold Mass. Some came at the regular time, figuring they could pray in a field if all the buildings were destroyed. Others saw the cardboard signs their pastor, Jerry Kaywell, wrote by hand.

Nearly 50 people found their way to the church for the 7 a.m. service. By 8:30 a.m., there were 100.

The main church building was destroyed, so the members gathered in the parish center across the street. They had no power, so they shined flashlights up at the ceiling. They couldn’t make out the words of the hymns, so they sang the one they knew by heart – Salve Regina.

Outside, pieces of insulation dangled from trees like tinsel. Traffic lights sat dark and useless. Downed power lines crossed the parking lot. Ruined homes sat abandoned, the names of insurance companies painted on the side.

Bishop John J. Nevins drove from the diocese headquarters in Venice to visit the church. He prayed for those who died and those who were hurt. He prayed for courage. “I came here today to encourage you not to give up hope,” he said.

Nobody at the church had much time to prepare before the hurricane, said Kaywell, who grew up in West Palm Beach. He helped board up the windows, then evacuated south as it began to pour.

He returned Saturday to survey the wreckage, amazed by the little things that remained. His vegetable garden was destroyed, but one pot of basil was untouched. And inside the church, he found a candle still burning. It was inside the tabernacle, protected from the wind.

The church van, youth ministry center and main church building are total losses, and still Kaywell is worried for some of his parishioners. He especially wonders about Ellie Simone, who lived inside St. Rita’s bookstore on church property. She never misses Mass, and nobody had seen her yet Sunday morning.

“We don’t know where she is,” Kaywell said. Without phones, he said, he had no way to reach her.

In the aftermath of the storm, he did what he could. He brought a caravan of staffers to a condo he owns in North Fort Myers so they could shower. He cooked up a feast of shrimp, scallops and anything else that would spoil. Under his robe, he wore jeans and a white T-shirt that said “No Fear.”

After the Mass, he took parishioners to see the remains of the building. Twigs and leaves were strewn across pews. Stained glass was blown out along the east wall. One woman gently picked up three dripping hymnals from the floor.

Henry Bolas of Punta Gorda Isles broke down when he saw the damage inside the church he had attended for 20 years. He and his wife evacuated to Lake Placid for the storm. After returning, he had been making a somber tour of the town.

Bolas, 73, said he left his small town in Pennsylvania nearly two decades ago for a Florida retirement. He loved Punta Gorda’s old buildings, fish camps and small downtown.

“It’s hard to see everything like this,” he said. “The city is gone.”

Bolas walked through the ruins of Sacred Heart on Sunday, carpet sloshing with every step. The morning sun shined on his face, through the hole where the stained glass windows were smashed.

“It’s OK. We’ll be all right,” he said, wiping away tears.

Copyright 2004 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 16, 2004 Monday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION, Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 606 words