A Year After Hurricanes,
Thousands Still in Limbo

As Hurricane Charley roared through Wauchula, Fla., last August, Bill Bishop gathered his family in the most stable part of his tin-roofed home and waited out the storm.

Wind tore through the roof and a tree branch smashed a window, letting in a deluge of rain. The next morning, Mr. Bishop, 74 years old, used a chain saw to tunnel his way through fallen trees.

"The whole street was wiped out," he says. After a few days, the Bishops abandoned their home and were assigned to a small trailer set up on their lot by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Nearly 10 months later, as the 2005 hurricane season gets under way, the Bishops still are living in that same trailer, waiting for the last repairs to be done on their house. Their 23-year-old granddaughter, Virginia Faulkner, also rendered homeless after Charley, lives nearby in a compound of 150 mobile homes set up by FEMA.

After last year's nearly unprecedented hurricane season -- when four major windstorms collectively devastated large areas of Florida and some adjoining parts of Alabama -- thousands of residents are still in limbo, as logistical and bureaucratic nightmares prevent them from returning to normal life.

Damage remains extensive, despite more than $5 billion in aid from FEMA and an estimated $18 billion in expected insurance payouts in Florida. More than 500 FEMA personnel remain in Florida, according to a spokeswoman. Mike Stone, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, says about 11,000 Florida families are still living in temporary housing.

Much debris, some of it potentially dangerous, is also scattered throughout the state. Lexton Albritton Jr., county manager for Hardee County, is worried about a large number of uprooted trees that still litter the landscape. "Kids will be playing on these things for years," he says.

Relief officials, local leaders and insurance experts say the lingering damage is the result of several factors, the most obvious being the sheer enormity of the cleanup and rebuilding required across dozens of counties.

In Orlando alone, the Orange County Building Division continues to process 2,500 to 3,000 permits for roof repairs each month. "We still have quite a ways to go yet," says manager Robert Olin, who notes that the numbers are decreasing by about 100 each month. After the storms, some roofing companies brought in contractors from outside Florida, or hired inexperienced workers, making it more difficult for building departments to ensure proper repairs were made, Mr. Olin says.

Aside from dealing with the storms' physical ravages, some Florida residents have had protracted battles with their insurance companies. Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, says people made 2.1 million claims related to the 2004 hurricanes, with 1.7 million of those claims located in Florida. To date, he says, more than 97% have been closed.

Douglas Caldes' problems typify the experience of many. An engineer living in Belle Isle, Fla., near Orlando, he says he had to wait three weeks after Charley took his roof off to get an appointment with an insurance adjuster. After that, he fired a contractor who he thought was overcharging him. "It was like one disaster after the next," he says.

The damage to his house worsened as water seeped in, causing black mold to grow on the walls. The first two adjusters sent by his insurer to evaluate his claim were difficult to work with, he says, and he is now dealing with his sixth. Insurance reimbursements are coming in, and he hopes to completely resolve his claim within the next two months. After nine months living in a hotel and repairs that exceed $200,000, the family finally moved back into the house this month.

Insurance industry spokesmen say the vast majority of claims from last year's storms have been settled. Philip LeGrone, a claims research director for Risk Management Solutions, an insurance consultancy, says several of his company's clients consider more than 90% of their residential claims closed from the 2004 hurricanes. A smaller percentage of commercial claims have been resolved, he said, and some repairs won't be completed until early 2007.

Florida's state-run home insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corp., has had more delays than private carriers, according to some insurance experts. The corporation was created by the state after some private insurance companies began withdrawing from Florida or severely limiting the number of policies issued here, to reduce their exposure to hurricane-related claims.

Spokesman Justin Glover says the state insurer was challenged after last year's storms partly because it couldn't bring in armies of adjusters from other parts of the country as private carriers did. "We were at a disadvantage," he says. Now, he says, roughly 1,000 hurricane-related Citizens Property claims, out of a total of about 118,000 filed, remain open.

Poorer communities -- where residents generally had less insurance coverage and have relied on religious and charitable groups for assistance -- have seen some of the slowest recovery. About 150 Hardee County families remain at a FEMA trailer park where Ms. Faulkner, the Bishops' granddaughter, is living. According to FEMA, about 350 more are living in travel trailers and mobile homes on private property in the county.

"It's been really rough," says Ms. Faulkner, 23, who is looking for permanent housing for herself, her 1-year-old daughter and her boyfriend. The FEMA compound isn't a nice neighborhood. Local police records show frequent calls from the compound for minor disturbances and domestic disputes. Ms. Faulkner says large potholes and garbage mars the grounds.

FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews says patrolling the mobile-home lot is the responsibility of the police. "We have no law-enforcement capacity," she says.

As tropical storm Arlene drenched Florida last weekend, residents are already bracing for what this year's hurricane season will bring. Though Arlene never approached hurricane force, it caused minor flooding and power outages in Escambia County and some nearby areas still struggling from the hurricanes of 2004.

"We're just hoping and praying that the big ones don't come," says Mr. Bishop.

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