#3 Postby Anonymous » Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:25 pm
I got the article for y'all:
HURRICANE AFTERMATH
The wary and weary keep boards on windows
After being hit by vicious storms, not all homeowners are ready to relax and let the sun shine in. Critics say the plywood shutters create an eyesore.
By Etan Horowitz | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 8, 2004
Life has returned to normal for most people since the last of three hurricanes rampaged through Central Florida, but Chafic Nasrallah isn't letting his guard down.
Nasrallah's Orlando home remains dungeonlike, with plywood still covering most of his windows. Though experts say chances are slight that another hurricane will hit before the season ends Nov. 30, it's not lost on Nasrallah that the odds of four hurricanes slamming Florida in one season were equally slim. One of them, Ivan, spared Central Florida.
"I feel like the threat is gone, but I like the safety of having them there," said Nasrallah, 35. "But if it does happen again, we are ready. I'm definitely leaving them up until the end of the season."
Nasrallah has a lot of company. Across Central Florida, thousands of homes and some businesses remain boarded up.
"After the fourth storm, my husband said he was tired of doing it and he was just going to leave them," said Cindy Williams of Tavares, whose home on Caroline Street still has plywood on most of the windows.
One of the boards has "Happy Birthday Cindy" spray-painted on it. Williams, who turned 55 during Hurricane Frances, said people honk when they drive by her house. She has lived in Florida since 1956 and remembers her father putting up plywood on their windows when she was growing up in South Florida.
"I think one time down there we kept ours up for three weeks, and that was it," Williams said. "This is the longest we have ever had them up. God, this year was bad. I hope we never have another one like it."
But residents with plywood-covered windows are often unpopular with neighbors who say such homes are eyesores. Some city and county officials are urging people to remove the boards, saying they violate code and are a fire hazard.
In the next few weeks, Orange County code-enforcement officers will contact people to warn them to take down their plywood. Officials in Seminole, Osceola, Lake and Volusia counties said they did not know of ordinances preventing people from keeping their windows boarded up, but many said boarded windows are a public-safety concern.
"The public is still recovering from three hurricanes, and the county has been sensitive to that," said Bob Spivey, Orange County's code-enforcement division manager. "But we have been giving people all kinds of extra time, and at some point we need to get back to business."
Nasrallah, who lives in the Coytown neighborhood, said some of his neighbors have complained that the boards make his home look ugly and have asked him to take them down. But Nasrallah isn't budging. He told his neighbors he will take them down "when he feels like it."
In subdivisions, where the appearance of homes is a priority for homeowners associations, residents can be forced to take down their boards, despite how safe they make them feel.
For example, in the Falcon Trace subdivision in south Orange, about 60 notices were sent to homes still boarded up, asking that the boards be taken down. The subdivision has about 900 homes, and its property-owners association has said it would like hurricane shutters to be taken down within seven days after a storm.
"It's just so unsightly to look at," said Ida Ezell, Falcon Trace community association manager. "Some people are feeling that it's bringing their property values down. It's not very complimentary to the neighbors or to the community."
Living with the windows boarded up has caused a change in lifestyle for many residents. Some expect their electric bills to increase because the lights are on all the time. Others said it's hard to get a cell-phone signal and their children have a tough time playing inside.
"It's dark, man," said Manuel Gutierrez, whose two-story Falcon Trace home remained boarded up for weeks after the last hurricane. "Nobody likes to be in the dark. We have to open the doors to see the sun."
The boards at the Gutierrez home finally came down last week.
Dr. Raymond Crowel, vice president for mental-health and substance-abuse services at the National Mental Health Association, said living in a dark, boarded-up home could impact someone's mood or outlook, but he would not consider it a clinical disorder or mental-health issue.
"If you are used to having access to sunlight and windows and suddenly that changes, then you are likely to have an emotional reaction to that," Crowel said. "You may see it as a decrease in productivity or a flat mood."
Garret Evans, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Florida, said he still sees lots of homes boarded up.
"People cope in all different kinds of ways," said Evans, whose home does not have boards on its windows. "If it makes them feel more comfortable, if they feel more prepared and if it's not interfering with their daily life, then it's best to let people keep their windows and doors boarded up for as long as they feel comfortable."
The gloomy atmosphere that comes with boarded-up windows has even spilled over to some businesses. At Seven Worldwide, an Orlando company that designs textbooks and other materials, just about all of the office's windows were covered with plywood until last week. About half of the Livingston Street building is made up of windows, and officials there said that if any of them broke, a lot of their equipment could be destroyed.
Carol Hugh, an administrative assistant, said it was depressing when the windows were boarded up and that "it was hard to concentrate because it was very dark inside and you didn't know what it was doing outside -- whether it was sunny or not."
Despite the comfort factor, some city and county officials have urged residents to take their plywood down to remove a fire hazard. If a fire breaks out, the boards can trap heat, smoke and toxic gas inside a house and also prevent firefighters from getting inside.
In September, fires in Homestead and Fort Lauderdale killed a total of six people whose windows were still boarded up.
"It's not healthy for the inhabitants, and it's not safe for rescue workers," said John Flint, the city manger of Weston.
Weston, in South Florida, has an ordinance that requires residents to take down shutters within 10 days after a storm. Flint said the city was prepared to start fining people who did not comply, but because of media attention to the ordinance, they have not had to do so.
Since 1886, a major hurricane (Category 3 and higher) has never affected Florida in November, according to the National Hurricane Center. However, weaker hurricanes have affected the state in November, and Frank Lepore, a spokesman for the center, said such storms can still damage homes.
"You still need to be prepared through the season," Lepore said. "The odds are probably low, but they are not zero."
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