This was nothing like the scale and size of Katrina, not even close. Katrina damage is almost unimaginable on a personal level. But I'll chime in here with an eyewitness report from 3 weeks of being there in Wilma affected areas (I intended to be there 2 weeks, but... there was a need). I can only report on what I and my teams actually saw and will not repeat what I heard thru the grapevine. (The grapevine was not working well anyway - or perhaps we were too busy to notice it).

There were indeed quite a few people affected in the INTERIOR of Florida. I was running K-5 in LaBelle (Hendry County) under the constant mentorship of a really great guy - couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to learn how to run a disaster kitchen. We fed folks in Hendry, Glades, Collier, and (briefly) Lee County (Ft. Myers specifically). The last 3 days, I was asked to go to K-15 in Belle Glade (Palm Beach County) and solve a few internal issues there.

Shelter populations are going UP, not down, in the rural counties. Whole subdivisions and camps of "factory built homes" are trashed to the point of being condemed as the local authorities get in to do more detailed damage assessment. FEMA has transitioned to Disaster Recovery in Hendry County that I know of but probably is still in assessment in rural Palm Beach County due to the amount of damage. Red Cross is going to be running shelter operations for quite some time and is running Client Services in strategic locations around the rural interior areas. In that general part of the state, AFAIK the only Red Cross disaster kitchen still operating this morning is in a place (I decline to stipulate exact location) that has a socio-political chronic need rather than a disaster need, which is very much a waste of Red Cross resources, especially when it is $300 million in debt and dropping millions per day in continued Katrina/Rita/Wilma help. I guess some local politians there must be up for re-election - there was/is some serious pressure being applied to keep feeding in a couple of places, and the pressure did not appear to originate from DC or Tallhassee.

Many of the migrant camps through some of that area have been severely impacted for quite some time ahead due to crop damage. Many poor folks and lower middle class folks have taken physical and economic hits that will endure long after the last truckload of debris is carted off. The wealthy coastal cities can easily handle what damage occured. Poor folks in the affected parts of the rural interior will not recover so easily.

And there are some very serious long-term problems scattered in large pockets of that area (a specific immigrant group) that pre-existed and are exacerbated by the damage.

Yeah, as hurricanes go, it was not that impressive on TV. If anyone has the opportunity, go out and see what happened in rural areas, talk to some affected folks there, and you'll perhaps get a different perspective. Not to mention that FEMA, Red Cross, SBC, and all the other NGOs are physically, finanacially, and emotionally wiped out, the equipment is trashed from excessive use without time for repairs, maintenance, and PM, and there is only so much of it to go around anyway. Wilma on top of Katrina was/is pretty rough, but according to my wife and the boys, it has not been newsworthy - not spectacular enough, I guess.

BTW, I out-processed thru the Ft. Meyers (actually, Lee County) chapter, taking my last 4 folks out at the same time with me, and I was extremely pleased with the nice treatment we got from the local and imported volunteers. I drove my last few folks from Belle Glade to Ft. Meyers specifically to spare them the ugliness of outprocessing thru Miami or West Palm beach - I'm still sorry I sent some folks to those places when their time was up <shudder>. The stress reaches 'way up the chain there...

As I wrote yesterday, I will go again on a Disaster Response. It's not for cowboys, though - this takes great teamwork horizonatally and vertically to work well and it demands the very best leadership available at all levels. I'll be very interested to hear what Ron saw when he gets back.

Regards to everyone,

Tired Tom

PS - There are some stories floating out there you may hear of - like the "lady" whose expensive "vacation" house was spared on the outskirts of Naples but didn't have power back on yet. She screamed and cursed at the ERV crew who was trying to feed some hot meals because they had no groceriers to give her (hot meals only) and her friends had just flown in from Ft. Lauterdale in their personal airplane for dinner and she had nothing to fix for supper for them... I got that first-hand from the crew that she cursed at. Draw your own conclusions.