by James Glaser
October 11, 2005

If you grew up in the North like I did, you have no idea of what it is like to go through a hurricane. I can't even imagine what one is like, but this past weekend I took a look at what a hurricane's aftermath is like a year later.

I drove west from Tallahassee on Highway 90. I could have taken Interstate 10, it would have been faster, but speed wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to see what small town rural northern Florida was like. Actually I wasn't looking for hurricane damage, I just happened upon it, and it surprised me.

I had read about Hurricane Ivan hitting the Gulf Coast, just west of Pensacola last September, but that was a year ago, and so it was out of my memory cells. The first sign that something had gone wrong in the part of the state I was driving through was when the forest started to look thin and open. Soon after that, about 35 miles east of Pensacola, I started seeing blue plastic on a lot of roofs and many boarded up houses.

By the time I actually got to the city limits, I was amazed. Remember this storm was over a year ago and there is damage everywhere. I couldn't count the number of roofs that were covered in blue plastic and on many roofs the plastic had rotted off and there were just pieces of blue, held down by the wood cleats nailed to the roof.

I saw piles of debris everywhere, and too many damaged signs to count. Some commercial blocks had everything spruced up and looking great. You could tell that all the signage was new and many of the storefronts had been replaced. Other blocks were untouched. The grass and plants looked long and ragged, the windows were still covered with plywood. Other businesses were open, but you could see they had sustained damage. I think every McDonalds I saw had the lower part of their sign blown out, but the "Golden Arches" were all there.

I went downtown and things were looking good down there. I was told that many of the empty lots had buildings on them that were damaged beyond repair and they had been torn down already. The Marina looked to be in fine shape with all new piers, but there were just two boats docked there. It looked like it could hold at least a hundred. Some bridges are still out and some have temporary metal repairs that made them seem unsafe to drive on.

On the way back to Tallahassee I saw the strangest sight. I was on a bridge, and next to the bridge was a wooded swampy area and in the middle of that woods, was a big cabin cruiser. I think you would have to cut about a thousand trees to get that boat out of there. It was white and looked to be sitting totally out of the grass and mud, but from the distance I was at, it looked in great shape, but trapped.

I read that the Pensacola area had lost 10.000 homes, and that thousands were still living in FEMA trailers all around the city. Also that those people will have to find a new place to live by March of 2006, as that is when the Federal Government will be taking back their trailers.

Everywhere you looked you saw roofing contractor trucks and trailers. Every motel, even those that looked like they should be torn down, is filled with workers, who are repairing this city.

Ivan hit a year ago in September 2004. The storm was bad and did a lot of destruction, but the damage in Pensacola was small, when you compare it to the devastation that Katrina brought to a wide area of the Gulf Coast.

If a year later, Pensacola is still under major repair, who knows how long it will take to repair the damage from this years storms? There will be a lot of jobs on the Gulf Coast, for years to come, and there will be a lot of misery too.