South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 4

PALM BEACH FROM PAGE ONE 16A Sunday, December 18, 2005 PB SOUTH FLORIDA UN-SENTINEL 1 77 1 I i V- 4 I kA. -V-, few. DRYING OUT IN WELLINGTON: "I had a lake in my house," said Cherie Noel, who is moving items into one of the few undamaged rooms as she prepares for extensive repairs. Among her biggest daily frustrations: Mold. Staff photoScott Fisher.

Wilma wallops county with $2.9 billion in damage 'Every morning I get up and clean' A Wellington household fights mold, frustration BY ANGEL STREETER STAFFWRITER Wellington Cherie Noel went through a nightmare the morning Hurricane Wilma hit western Palm Beach County. Holed up in a bedroom closet with her daughter and dogs, she spent hours holding the door shut. Skylights in her master bathroom and kitchen blew out, sending wind, rain and debris into her home. "Everything in my house was crashing," she said. "It took all the strength I had to keep my closet door shut." She's now living a second nightmare: repairing all the damage her Meadow Wood neighborhood home sustained.

She needs a new roof and screen enclosure. She has to replace windows and sliding glass doors warped by Wilma's winds. The soggy ceiling has to go. And she's constantly fighting mold. "Every morning, I get up and clean," she said.

Her insurance company, Allstate, estimates her damages at about $230,000. But that doesn't include replacing personal belongings, moldy furniture or doors. The experience isn't new to Noel, just worse. Last year's hurricanes also inflicted damage to the four-bedroom house, requiring a roof to be repaired and major appliances replaced after a power surge. Noel, an artist with her own pottery and sculpture business, had just about recuperated from Frances and Jeanne when Wilma came crashing through her neighborhood on the western edge of Wellington.

Water pooled on tile floors in the kitchen, living room and master bathroom. The walls were plastered with dirt and grass. "I had a lake in my house," Noel said. "It looked like spinach in my house." Mold began spreading among her soggy belongings. The soaked kitchen cabinets will have to be replaced.

Everyday, Noel washes them down with a bleach concoction to keep the mold at bay. In a guest bedroom, belongings that need to be treated for mold are piled on the floor. 1 Noel believes she and her 12-year-old daughter have begun getting headaches from the mold. She's waiting for a check from her insurance company. "The first thing the money has to go toward is everyone who wants to be paid for clean-up," Noel said.

She won't be able to stay in the house when repairs begin after Christmas. For the first week, she plans to stay in a timeshare on Singer Island. Then, she will have to find a rental that her insurance company will pay for at least a few months. "There are people worse off than me," Noel said. "I didn't lose my home." in the county.

City leaders closed a couple of strip plazas because of hurricane damage, and many businesses along Northwest Second Avenue had roof damage, said Nicole Gasparri, assistant to the city manager. Some of those businesses have returned, and city officials couldn't say which ones closed for good. Wilma threw down $32 million worth of trees, fencing, lights and bleachers, and it damaged ball fields, walking paths and some buildings in parks across the county. Boca Raton's plushly landscaped 967 acres of parks and medians saw $11.2 million of damage. Parks in the county had 13 million worth of damage, and the town of Palm Beach had 1 .4 million.

Contractors are still cleaning debris out of Boca Raton's 94-acre Spanish River Park, which was impassable in the days after the storm. Besides removing the downed or damaged trees, the estimates include the cost of reinforcing the remaining ones and replacing others, Gasparri said. Statewide, the hurricane drew 750,000 claims, most of which came from South Florida, according to Sam Miller, executive vice president of the Florida Insurance Council. Another major insurer, Citizens Property Insurance has gotten 20,000 homeowner claims from Palm Beach County alone. Wilma's ferocity and the damage it caused caught many by surprise.

"It's a wonder my paint was still on the walls," Snell said of her Highland Beach condo. She has as much as $30,000 in damage to her two-bedroom home and doesn't have insurance. "As long as nobody was killed and nobody was literally hurt, that's the godsend," she said. "Monetary things can always be DAMAGE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A $1 billion in losses. Residential damage stands somewhere around 1 .6 billion, estimates show.

Local governments expect to pay more than $300 million for repairs and debris removal. The 7.7 million cubic yards of storm debris picked up so far is enough to fill about 2,500 Olympic size swimming pools. The direction of the hurricane and wind speeds makes all the difference, said John Tatum, Palm Beach County's recovery manager. Wilma came from the west, whacking the fringes of the county with fierce winds first. "Plus, there are far more open spaces out there than on the east coast," Tatum said.

The storm also hit the southern half of the county hard, he said. No one needs to tell that to Mary Snell. For 23 years, she has enjoyed the views from the floor-to-ceiling windows in her 17th-story Highland Beach condominium near the Intracoastal Waterway. On a clear day, she can see from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach, she said. Wilma wrenched through her Breamer Isle home, shattering four windows.

Snell, 80, was in Michigan at the time, so her daughter removed 15 bags of glass. The storm soaked the condo's interior, and flying glass ripped much of it to shreds. Doors flew off hinges, debris punched holes in walls and wind tossed everything into a wet furniture salad in the middle of the apartment, with bedding landing under the grand piano and dining chairs tumbling onto the balcony. Wt'lington, a community that includes many newer residences, had 325 houses with major damage and 3,200 with minor damage out of more than 20,000 homes in the village, estimates show. Only the county's vast unincorporated area fared worse, with 467 houses taking major damage.

The estimated damage bill in Wellington alone: more than $50 million for housing repairs. Wilma hit Wellington's western neighborhoods and equestrian areas hardest, said Paul Schofield, the village's community services director. Village officials clocked wind speeds at more than 1 1 0 mph, with even higher gusts. The bulk of the damage in Wellington was to roofs and screen enclosures, Schofield said. Concrete tiles flew off roofs.

Tiles attached by mortar rather than nails fared poorly. Clyde Meck-stroth remembers hearing the click-click-click sound of tile flying off his roof during the hurricane. He estimates that it will take about 1 00,000 to replace the roof and a collapsed screen enclosure. "You're just sitting there and thinking, 'Oh shoot, that's my he said. "But there's nothing you can do about it hope it doesn't spring a leak." The storm didn't spare working class neighborhoods, either.

The tiny village of Palm Springs, home to many apartments built in the late 1970s or earlier, had 460 multifamily homes with major damage the highest number in the county. The 2 -square-mile community also had a high number of four-unit town-houses and quadruplexes with flat, poorly maintained roofs that couldn't withstand Wilma's winds. "We had more flat roofs peel off in Wilma," said Bette Lowe, the village's land development director. In West Palm Beach, businesses took a $247 million blow from Wilma, second only to the amount of damage to businesses in unincorporated areas. Most of the damage was concentrated in several downtown areas, said Neil Melick, the city's director of construction services.

Along the South Dixie Highway corridor known as Antique Row, Wilma punched out storefront windows, ruined interiors and soaked merchandise and furniture, he said. Boca Raton lost 25 businesses, almost half of the 55 that were destroyed Luis F. Perez can be reached at or Angel Streeter can be reached at or 561-243-6643. HURRICANE WILMA DAMAGE ESTIMATES A look at the estimates of damage to businesses, residences and government property caused by Hurricane Wilma. All figures are in millions of dollars, unless otherwise noted.

Municipality Business Housing Govarnmant Municipality Businassas Housing Govarnmant Municipality Businassas Housing Govarnmant 1 Atlantis $1 $10 $02 Lakedarke $0.12 $2.6 $0.09 Riviera Beach $7 $10 $14 BelleGlade $12 $7.70 $1.6 shores Royal Palm $3.2 $4.3 7 BocaRaton $20.9 $24.80 $15.1 LakePark $7J $2 $0.4 Beach Boynton Beach $25 $75 $2.37 UkeWorth $2J $10.1 $15.9 South Bay $4.5 $5 $3 Briny Breezes $0.0035 $2.80 $0.04 Lantana $2.4 $1.8 $0.4 South Palm $0.46 $8 1 $0 01 Cloud lake $0 $02 $0 Manalapan $5.1 $0.2 Delray Beach $110 $40.1 $2.93 MangoniaPark $0.87 $0.1 $0.2 Tequesta $3 $2 $02 QenRidge $0.26 $0.07 $0 NorthPalm $1.1 $1.5 $05 Wellington 57 $50.4 Golf $0.15 $1.70 $0.2 Beach J- 9 wtPa'm $267.4 $153.1 $5.3 Greenacres $2.70 $13 $054 0cean S0 4 50 04 Beach Gulfstream $1 $1 $0.16 Pahokee 30 oZZT4 54211 ttlOJ iHaverhill $0.15 $0.68 $0.03 HighlandBeach $12 $12 $0.06 PalmBeach $5.7 $23.1 $03 $16 Hypotuxo $2.70 $1 $0.01 Gardens County schools "---'r JunoBeach $0.42 $0.92 $0.14 PalmBeach $0.41 $0.21 $0.05 Countywtde $158billion Jupiter $0.35 $21.6 $1.39 Shores Total Jupiterlnlet $0.02 $0.7 $0.04 Palm Springs 1 $3 $25 $0.6 Figures have been rounded 1 Colony SOURCE: PALM BEACH COUNTY.