Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 11

sect on IMibM sdjysters move Dim to help COLUMNIST HOWARD TROXLER Insurance workers scurry from home to home, assessing damage and attempting to calm the jangled nerves of weather-weary residents. By JEFF TESTERMAN Vm Staff Writer Journalists quake with uncertainty about Perot PINELLAS PARK Mark Henn spent Sunday assuring people who had lost just about everything that everything would be okay. "Don't worry," Henn, a claims adjuster for Allstate Insurance, told Agnes Burdick. "We're going to help you. You'll have to be patient." But on Sunday morning, Burdick, 78, was impatient.

Half of her home in the Autumn Run subdivision had been destroyed by a tornado the day before. Much of the roof was on the front lawn. Her kitchen was filled with insulation, shattered glass and splintered beams. There was no power or water or phone service. Yet one of the bedrooms looked untouched.

And while the twister smashed all Burdick's Sm v. i.v iR fsJp II L. A Tlmtl photo SCOTT KEELEH Mark Henn, an Allstate Insurance adjuster, told Agnes Burdick on Sunday that she had to leave her tornado-ravaged home in Autumn Run, after Pinellas Park officials condemned it. INSIDE Emergency response teams get mixed reviews. 6B A widow's house collapses, but she and her daughter are unhurt, and she recovers her husband's ashes.

6B Schools will be open; the state opens an insurance office; a family stumbles across a rocket in their yard. 6B precious porcelain plates mounted on one wall of the foyer, the 28 plates on the other wall remained untouched. "We're staying," Burdick told Henn. "We don't want to leave because the kids are going to vandalize the place. We want to save what we can." Moments earlier, city workers had posted a bright orange notice on Mrs.

Burdick's home. "Unfit for human habitation," it read. The Burdick home, like every one of the 12 houses on the north side of Fallingleaf Court, had been condemned. "No, you'll have to leave," counseled Henn. "They've condemned your house.

You'll have to relocate. We'll get someone to help get you moved out." Henn's reluctant client finally nodded her head. Henn is one of 45 Allstate adjusters who brought gentle persuasion, kind en Miracles were in abundance on Saturday Miracle workers took many forms for survivors. One credits God, another her son and a third, a La-Z-Boy chair. tttt lu Jt "1H I ill Mil '1 it y.

i i couragement and emergency insurance checks into storm-ravaged neighborhoods in Pinellas County on Sunday. The company already expects to pay billions of dollars in claims to victims of Hurricane Andrew. Saturday's tornadoes probably will produce a few million more in claims, though insurance carriers keep those figures secret. Allstate agents took more than 200 claims in the five hours after the storm struck Saturday. Agents in a recreational vehicle marked "Allstate Catastrophe Team," parked in Autumn Run, estimated they handed out $75,000 to $100,000 in emergency living expense checks between 9 a.m.

and noon Sunday. "This is as bad as I've seen since I came to Florida 13 years ago," said Henn as he cruised through what was left of a four square block area in Autumn Run. 4 pp. ii 1 By MARK JOURNEY, MONICA DAVEY and BILL ADAIR Tim 8tWWrttf PINELLAS PARK Diana Dougherty was lying in bed with a broken leg when she heard her 18-year-old son screaming about the terrible noise. "He grabbed hold of me, pulled me in the closet, closed the door, and the roof and the rest of the house blew away," she said.

"The bed I was on the whole wall, the bricks, just fell on the bed and crushed it." Almost all of the house was carried away by the swirling winds, but Mrs. Dougherty and her son, Mike, escaped serious injury in the closet of their Pinellas Park home. Mrs. Dougherty is convinced that she owes her life to her son. "I would have been dead," she said Sunday.

The Dougherty's extraordinary tale of survival is just one of many that emerged Sunday as Pinellas residents were left wondering how so many had escaped death or serious injury. Elkin D'Leon, 46, was one of the lucky ones. When he saw trees, shingles and wood flying through the air, he called his wife, Gloria. When she came out of a bedroom of their Pinellas Park home, a window blew out and there was a "boom." D'Leon Please see MIRACLES 6B If'') IV Reading an editorial about Ross Perot in the Times on Friday, I noticed this assertion in the first sentence: When the long-awaited announcement came at 4 p.m. Thursday in Dallas, the political ground did not tremble.

But here was the first sentence of a editorial about Perot published the same day in the Tampa Tribune. Ross Perot made the political ground tremble Thursday when he announced he will re-enter the race for president. Well, which is it? Did Ross Perot make the political ground tremble, or didn't he? You would think that the trembling of political ground would be hard to mistake. I demanded an explanation for this glaring discrepancy from Phil Gailey, the Times' editorial page editor. Gailey asserted that Perot would have little effect on the outcome of the race.

In fact, the polls had been barely affected by his entry. "We stand by our seismological assessment," Gailey said, puffing his pipe. This is how editorial page editors talk. I also happen to know that the editorial page editors of both newspapers puff pipes. Ed Roberts, the editorial page editor of the Tribune, told me that Perot would force the other two candidates to deal with the issues, and would radically change the debates.

This certainly qualifies as trembling ground, he said. "I think Phil Gailey needs new instrumentation," Roberts said. Considering it a draw so far, I sought clarification from the giants of the industry. Perhaps other major American newspapers had noticed the phenomenon, or as President Bush might describe it, "this trembling thing." R.W. Apple an important writer for the New York Times, at first blush seemed to take the side of the Tribune.

Perot, Apple wrote on Page 1, "shook the scaffolding of American politics" by entering the race. I figured that if the scaffolding of American politics had been shaken, then certainly the political ground had trembled. But Apple went on to say that Perot's announcement "was only an aftershock compared with the major earthquakes he caused earlier this year." So the New York Times also was inconclusive. It depends on whether "an aftershock" qualifies as the trembling of political ground. Besides, as Gailey pointed out, it is possible to shake a scaffolding even if the ground is rock steady, although you could argue, in reply, that rocks are not steady if they are part of a trembling political ground.

The Wall Street Journal eschewed the question of trembling entirely, but it did use the word "eschew" in the second paragraph of its Perot story. Perhaps terrified by the temblor of Perot's entry, the Journal spewed forth an amazing array of metaphors in just a few lines, saying Perot had "shaken up American politics," "thrown another wild card into the election," and that his entry "scrambles the campaign." This shaking, scrambling and wildcard throwing, the Journal said, would probably help "the beleaguered President Bush," who "needs a jolt from any source if he is to have a real chance to win." "Beleaguered" is an accepted journalistic word which translates as, "A guy we write lots of bad stuff about," but "jolt" as a cliche is usually better saved for stories concerning electricity, for instance, and executions. A possible explanation for this trembling controversy, of course, is that Perot caused the political ground to tremble in downtown Tampa, but not in downtown St. Petersburg. No doubt the competing chambers of commerce can make hay with this.

It may be that the media conspiracy simply broke down that day. As you know, we transmit the "angle of the day" among ourselves so we all march in lockstep, and it could be that some hapless typist somewhere confused trembling with not trembling. We will try to do better. One thing is certain. (Of course, this suggests that other things are not certain, which I am certain is not true.) It is too early to know whether the political ground is trembling.

As I always say, it remains to be seen. Time will tell. Better yet, make that: Time alone will tell. A 1 i i i He carried a computer printout of Allstate policy holders, but clients weren't difficult to find. "People have learned from Hugo and Andrew," said Henn as he pointed to a homeowner spray-painting "Allstate" and his policy number on the outside of his house.

Before the day was over, dozens of residents would paint similar informational graffiti on their homes. Please see HELP 6B Tlmo photo BRIAN BAER Harry Sieg, 72, surveys the La-Z-Boy that saved his life and the damage at his mobile home in the Park Royale Village. Tornado deposits checks miles away HERNANDO- 1 pring Hill I Checks iJjg Hudson By RICK QERSHMAN Tlmt Corrtpondnt PASCO New Port Rlchey 22 ILLSBOROUGH A sort of atmospheric airmail sends a Pinellas Park couple's canceled checks flying 50 miles up the Suncoast. hara fL Tampa i someone in Spring Hill who found one of the checks," Loretta Gordon said Sunday. "They wanted to know if I wanted it back; I told them I was just keeping them for insurance purposes, and they could keep it as a souvenir." Gordon and her family do not have much left but souvenirs.

A tornado smashed in one side of her house in Beacon Run subdivision and tore away the garage and an attic above it. "We have no house anymore," she said. "Right now we're just taking out what we can." Checks also fluttered down; over Pasco County. Sixteen-year-old Melissa Tira- co of the Shadow Ridge area of i Please see CHECKS 4b! PINELLAS Pinnllns f- The tornado that ripped the roof off Derrel and Loretta Gordon's home in Pinellas Park on Saturday sucked their canceled checks from the attic and deposited them as far north as Hernando County, 50 miles away. "I got a call (Saturday) from si PmarfihnrVlf JfRuskin Times art DER official played politics Chain for change vviui vvunvcid day 1 r)L" TJ1 J.UU1 a Histrirt manaopr fnr thp Dpna a district manager for the if- ABORTION ,1 WKTIONl Robert V.

"Bob" Kriegel gave or withheld Kills If 1 1 Kiis Department of Environmental Regula f. 7 Chuhen 'J permits for friends or enemies of powerful politicians, employees tell the FDLE. j'JM By BILL MOSS TVnM Staff Writer iT'' i'. 7 "-Ml-! faf if nil i mm" I tion. FDLE agents investigated allegations that Kriegel had taken bribes and that he knowingly issued permits for development and industrial discharge that caused pollution.

The agents found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. They did, however, recommend management changes. DER employees told the agents that Kriegel issued questionable permits to people with the right connections. Conversely, they said, he retaliated, through rigid enforcement, against enemies of the "downtown crowd" of Please see PERMITS 4B TALLAHASSEE The state's top environmental official in the Panhandle for years has granted permits based on political favoritism, ignoring staff findings that the permits would harm the environment, according to more than a dozen current and former state employees. The employees gave sworn statements to Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, who were conducting a criminal investigation of Robert V.

"Bob" Kriegel, Timet photo CHUCK WIRSHELS Demonstrators at U.S. 19 and Ridge Road in Port Richey join a nationwide "life chain" against abortion on Sunday. Similar events were held in Pinellas and Hillsborough. Robert V. Kriegel Is one of the state's top environmental.