Hurricane Ian has left so much devastation in Florida. My friend Kathleen Barkley is one of

The stories.Kathleen lives in Port Charles, Florida one of the hard hit area’s and not far from Fort Meyers. Kathleen and her brother whom lives with her are both in their 70’s, and he is not doing well through this devastating trauma, with stage 4 kidney disease, she is stage 3. She looks after them both. I know that the emotional toll has been tremendous, as the area all around them looks like a war zone. Kathleen’s house was one of the last to get power. The damage to the roof and electric has put her in a dire situation. The house has damage inside & out. She is on a fixed income and does not have the resources to fix the damage to their home, buy food and secure her property. FEMA & Insurance have not come through and the insurance company wants a hefty deductible. $4-5,000 dollars that she does not have.The stress of not having resource is taking it's toll. She has spent hours in lines to get help with food and emergency services. Kathleen is a good Christian woman, who lost her husband a few years back, and she was a RN Nurse for over 30 years. She has helped so many people. My intent is to help anyway I can, and this seems to be a way to get immediate, desperately needed help. Thank you all for anything you can do for my friend. Love & Light, Mila

THIS IS KATHLEEN'S STORY

Hurricane Ian arrived at 12 noon on 9/28/22 and didn’t leave us until after midnight. The longer the storm hovered over us, the more damage it did. We lost power about 2pm and our neighbor hooked us up to a generator and small air conditioner to keep humidity out and mold from forming. The hurricane spawned waterspouts and tornados. We could see water spouts. We received several alerts on our phones telling us to take shelter in a room with no windows. I placed a chair and pillow in my walk in closet and watched as the storm slammed gusts of wind, rain and debris at my sliding glass door, while praying the sliding glass doors would not break from the wind gusts of 155 mph. There were puddles of water on my floors beneath all 3 sets of sliding glass doors. Further examination of the doors revealed a 1/4 inch opening at the top of each door where the rain came in and formed a puddle on the floor that flowed from one room to the room next to it. I place towels on the floors to soak up the water as much as possible. The doors wouldn’t close all the way at the top and would not lock any longer. Debris and tree limbs continued to hurl at the windows with every gust of wind. Looking out my window, I could see water pooling in my neighbor’s backyard and on the street. The water on the street was gushing like a rapid and soon a lake was forming between houses, across the street to homes on the other side of the street. That is when I became frightened and worried about water getting inside our home and the nightmare of flooding and where could we go? Even though water had pooled on my front lawn and half way up my driveway, it did not flood my home. It was most definitely a time to stay in prayer and thank God for sparing our lives, our home and belongings. We received several alerts on our phones, telling us when the storm was expected to end. It ended sometime after midnight. Needless to say, we were unable to sleep as we wished the night away to see daylight. When daybreak arrived, the first thing I did was look out my windows to see the water level and thankfully it had receded. We went outside to look for damages and saw neighbors looking over their properties and damages. Many tree limbs and electrical wires were down, some shingles off the roof, the ceiling on the over hang in the backyard torn and large pieces fallen down, sections of soffits missing, garage door buckled inward, weather head on roof broken with a hole at it’s base, lots of loss of stucco and paint all around the house, but worse in the back of the house. My 40 foot mango tree is 75 o/o gone. All other trees on my property either snapped in half, uprooted or tops of them gone. Debris from neighbors trees and roofs were in my yard. My 3 sliding glass doors were all blown off their tracks during the storm.

There was a curfew in effect from 9 pm to 6 am following the storm with policemen and state troopers enforcing the curfew to prevent vandalism and directing traffic where traffic lights were out or blown down. The information towers were severely damaged and we have been without internet or news since the storm.

When we could finally get out and about, we could observe the damages throughout our community.

There were tents set up in the mall parking lots where insurance companies, FEMA, Operation Blue, Verizon, x-Finity and other vendors to offer us help with filing claims, providing food, water, fresh bananas and MRE’s.I filed claims with my insurance company and FEMA. FEMA denied me, but I was told to reapply after the adjuster wrote his report. To date, no adjuster has come to inspect my home or property, but 2 men came to take pictures of damages and 2 other men came the next day to to put a tarp on hole on roof where the weather head broke and they were able to get the sliding glass doors back on track.

My neighbor had hooked us up to his generator with a small air conditioner, when we lost power, to try to keep humidity out of the house, but the bedrooms remained hot and humid. The generator ran for 15 days at $40 per day for gas.

We lost all our food in the refrigerator and freezer that I bought the day before the storm.

I called the insurance company to try to get the adjuster out so I could at least get the weather head replaced in order to get the electricity turned on. First I was told it would be covered, the next call to the insurance company, it might not be covered, they were going to check on it and call back in an hour, but no returned call. I called Florida Power and Light to try to get help, not able to help me until weather head is replaced. The power trucks came by a week after the storm and told me I would not get power until the weather head is replaced by an electrician. I called the insurance company again, to inform them I would have no power until the weather head was replaced, still no adjuster to evaluate damages.

After 2 weeks waiting to get help to get the power on, I called an independent licensed and insured electrician, who came out the following morning with a breakfast burrito for me and he replaced the weather head within an hour. I paid him with the money I was saving to pay my property taxes, it remains to be seen if it will be covered or not. I called Florida Power and Light to tell them the weather head was replaced and they said it would be up to 2 more weeks before they could hook me up to power. I started to cry and told them I was a senior citizen taking care of my sick brother but no one cares and no body cares if we die. I no sooner hung up and 3 power trucks were here to hook me up to power and that was Day15 after the storm. I had made several calls to Governor DeSantis’ office to try to get funds to help with repairs and $4680 insurance deductible, to no avail. We also need money to replace the food that was lost and to live on. They provided other phone numbers, but when I called them, I got recordings , no answer and no call backs.

For now I have power and neighbors are helping neighbors. I cooked for my neighbors who helped me and checked on me after the storm. Times are rough for many of us at this time, everything from food to supplies for repairs and workmen are expensive. I appreciate any help at this time and I look forward to paying it forward in the future. I Love God and I Praise God for I am Alive to tell my story.

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