Hurricane victims battle back after storm

In any other context, Bob Pifer probably wouldn't think of himself as lucky.

The retired U-M police officer watched his screened-in porch fly into his pool, heard wicked winds peeling off his roof tiles and videotaped water shooting dangerously from the canal that borders his property. He'll need a new carpet and roof.

A sign along a Punta Gorda street (above) offers assistance to people needing food and water. The hurricane caused many people to lose electricity and access to safe drinking water. A speed limit sign says 35 (below), but the hurricane ripped through here with winds reaching 145 mph. "I don't think Charley was ticketed," says recent retiree Lew Morrissey. The bottom half of what used to be the Waves of Grain bread/pastry/deli store is a shell of its former self in post-hurricane Punta Gorda (bottom). (Photos by Lew Morrissey)

"We were pretty fortunate," says Pifer, who was associate director of public safety and security at the University until 1999.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Charley, words like "lucky" and "fortunate" have taken on new meaning. Pifer and his wife, JoAnn, were in the path of the Aug. 13 Category 4 storm which hit Florida before last week's mass evacuation caused by Hurricane Frances. Like many other U-M retirees in Punta Gorda and nearby Port Charlotte on Florida's Gulf coast, they are recovering from the harsh hurricane, which left at least 25 people dead and caused an estimated $15 billion in damage.

One of the people picking up the pieces after Charley is Lew Morrissey, who was chief Freedom of Information Act officer and director of state outreach. He retired at the end of June and looked forward to a year of visiting family members and building a new house before starting work as a consultant.

As it turns out, he'll have plenty of opportunities to visit family members. His condo in Punta Gorda didn't suffer much damage during Charley, but mold crept into the walls because there was no air conditioning to dry the wet surfaces. For now, all of his furniture is in a storage unit, and he and his wife are staying with various relatives throughout the state.

He had only lived in Punta Gorda for a couple of weeks when the storm hit. On the day of the hurricane, he and his wife were celebrating their anniversary and his retirement with relatives in Orlando. When the storm came inland, the family huddled together in the closet inside the house and hoped for the best.

A huge oak tree crashed on top of the house. The roof held, but everybody was shaken up by the near-disaster.

"We were unscathed, except emotionally," Morrissey says.

Wilma Leslie, a retiree who worked for 33 years at the University Health Service, wasn't at her Port Charlotte home at the time of the storm. Upon returning, she was greeted by a home lacking electricity and running water.

Leslie knows things could have been much worse. Every time she drives near a storm-ravaged mobile home park or sees a business with its roof torn off, she is reminded of the intense heartache and devastation others are experiencing.

"When you go through those areas, it just makes your heart break," Leslie says. "What a terrible mess. I don't know how they're ever going to get it cleaned up."

The Pifers, at least, have a good idea about when they'll get their mess cleaned up. Bob Pifer says he is—and here's that word again—lucky to have talked to his insurance companies shortly after the storm. He received the check to pay for his damaged truck within a couple of weeks, and shortly after that a glass repairman was on his way to install some new windows.

The Morrisseys are continuing with plans to build a house in Punta Gorda—on a canal, no less.

"We're still planning to start the building process," Morrissey says. "We're not going to let Charley interfere with our long-term plans."