Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 41

SERVING THE NEIGHBORHOODS OF St. Petersburg Gulfport Pinellas Park Beaches ST. PETERSBURG TIMES SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3. 1993 IN TAMPA BAYSTATE For all the devastation caused in Pinellas County last October, the tornadoes taught community and emergency preparedness officials invaluable lessons. Ron Forbes, Pinellas Park's city manager, says: "We feel we're prepared to respond again if necessary.

I hope we won't have to." 1B The Oct. 3, 1992, tornadoes did more than blow out windows, tear down walls and cause tens of millions of dollars in damage to the south and touched the lives of hundreds more as they spread their destruction. On the one-year anniversary of the deadly tornadoes, the Times IN THIS SECTION The community of Dansville near Largo was in the middle of the action last October. Twenty-six homes were destroyed by the tornado, but residents say their plight was overlooked. A year later, many say the storm made the close-knit community pull even closer.

Page 4 talks with residents whose lives are shaped forever by those seconds of fury. beaches and mid-Pinellas County. The tornadoes took four lives QUE YBn LATER lKf FACES IN THE CROWD JACQUSN UMmM SANDERS i Home's loss came after the storms A woman's home of 30 years could not be rebuilt within federal regulations and within the owner's budget. Now the empty lot sits on the market 1 Hv" longer at home on 63rd Way The tornadoes that roared through Pinellas County one year ago today devastated 63rd Way in the Beacon Run subdivision of Pinellas Park. "Just on this one block, 24 houses were so damaged (that) the people had to move out while repairs were made," Eulogio Rios says.

"Six or seven houses were completely rebuilt. Some families never came back." Bill and Darla Harmon and their two children were one such family. "It changed our lifestyles," Mrs. Harmon says. "It changed our lives." On a street of young, up-and-coming people in young, up-and-coming houses, the Harmons had a single problem.

They were renters, not owners. "For a long time, it didn't seem to matter," Mrs. Harmon says. "Anyway, we had worked out an agreement with the landlord to buy the house. But after the tornado it was a different situation." They had rented the home unfurnished and had no renter's insurance.

They lost five rooms of furniture. As renters, they didn't get the substantial sums of money to pay for temporary living quarters that many insured homeowners received soon after the disaster. And just before the tornado, they had absorbed another piece of bad luck: Bill Harmon had been laid off his job. But some good things happened. Mrs.

Harmon's longtime employer, Paradyne, gave her two weeks off with pay and let the family move into one of the company apartments until they found a place to live. "And Bill's being laid off turned into a blessing. It gave him time to spend with the kids. And they needed it." The Harmons have two children: Kris-ty, 13, and Cole, 9. Kristy was safe with neighbors during the storm.

Cole was with his parents, driving home from a visit to his grandmother in Largo. He didn't undergo the worst of the tornado, but he saw the Please see SANDERS Page 4 From the rubble, homes rise again Ten homes on Elmhurst Drive were destroyed by the tornadoes that ripped through Pinellas last October. Last year, the Times visited with the families after the storm. Today, we revisit the block to see their progress. Page 4.

IRecOTiry canu lbs ewem 1. By JENNY DEAM Timet Staff Writer A TREASURE ISLAND bright green For Sale sign stands today in the empty lot on 104th Avenue, a testament to the fight waged and lost by an elderly widow who fought City Hall. In just a few seconds a year ago, a i tornado ripped apart Kathleen Dunn's home of 30 years. But she says the damage done since has been much more than plywood and plaster. thought I was there for life," she said last week.

Instead, the 79-year-old is living a few doors down in a rented apartment waiting for the lot to sell. Mrs. Dunn tried for four months to get the city to grant her an exemption from a federal regulation that required her to elevate her duplex above the flood plain when it was rebuilt. Under Federal Emergency Management Agency requirements, any house built before 1968 that receives more than 50 percent of its market value in damage must be rebuilt to comply with existing guidelines. Mrs.

Dunn's house was the only one in the city that fell under the so-called 50 percent rule after the tornado. That meant she was required to tear down what was left of the old house and raise the new one more than 6 feet off the ground. But that was impossible, she argued, because her 90-year-old mother-in-law, who lived with her part of the year, used a wheelchair and would have not been able to get in the front door. Furthermore, she said, the insurance money was not enough to rebuild the duplex and install an elevator. On Feb.

1 1, the city's board of adjustment denied her request for a hardship variance from the FEMA requirement. Mike Knotek, the city's building official, said the decision was made because "there was no hardship." He said it was determined that Mrs. Dunn could rebuild a smaller version of her duplex and comply with the FEMA regulations. He said the city had no choice. "This whole city is under the watchful eye of the flood plain management agency in Atlanta," Knotek said.

So Mrs. Dunn has moved twice in a year. First to a condominium in St. Petersburg Beach while she waited for a decision from the city and then in May to an apartment complex back on 104th Avenue. In April, Mrs.

Dunn's mother-in-law died. Mrs. Dunn is trying to adjust to her new situation. "It's not so bad. I like it better Please see LOSS Page 3 A big hug on a day for God's creatures Marli Koch, 4, of St.

Petersburg gives her dog Salty, a 2-year-old Labrador, a loving squeeze Saturday during the Blessing of the Animals at Curry Memorial Garden. The event commemorated the feast of St. Francis of Assisi and was sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Experts say it's harder for them to shake the feeling of loss, and injuries strike harder at people with existing physical problems.

By JOHN A. CUTTER Timet Staff Writer PINELLAS PARK aryMcGrath could hear her husband's voice, faintly from the back, where the bedroom used to be. She called him, using the nickname that was second nature to her after 55 years of marriage. "Chick. CHIIIICCKKKt" They found Charles "Chick" McGrath under the debris.

His slight, 5-foot-8, 130-pound body was pinned under hundreds of pounds of his home at the Park Royale Mobile Home Village. His legs were mangled. There were cuts and bruises. And as the winds swirled and rain fell from a blinding black sky, Charles McGrath looked up at his wife and uttered a prophecy: "I'll never recover from this." Six and a half months later, on a sunny spring Sunday of cloudless blue skies, Charles McGrath died at age 81. He had been in Bayfront Medical Center since the tornadoes of Oct.

3. "There were times when he was in the hospital that he would mouth the words, 'Let me says Mrs. McGrath, who is 78. "He couldn't talk because they had a tube (for a respirator) in his throat. It's what I feel the I 77 rYjy.i" 'ft- t.

i h' 1 -j. 'I V. I storm, he is far from the last casualty. Experts and those who survived the storm say many people still suffer, especially older residents of the areas where storm damage was worst. Some older people have incomprehensible pain from their loss, like Mrs.

McGrath. Others bemoan lesser but still tangible losses. Homes meant to be the last ones a Please see OLDER Page 4 Times photo FRASER HALE Religious treasures are among the few items Mary McGrath was able to salvage from her demolished mobile home in Pinellas Park. worst about. We never got to talk again." She cries at this point, big tears that she wipes away with a finger and a deep breath.

Mrs. McGrath says she doesn't cry often, but there are moments when the rush of pain sweeps in, like the storm that tore her home and her life apart a year ago. Although Charles McGrath was likely the final fatality from the October Timet photo V. JANE WINDSOR The aftermath was long and difficult for Bill and Darla Harmon and their children, Kristy, 13, and Cole, 9. Poetry readings coming back The movement flourishes in coffee houses, theaters and bookstores.

By SHARON KIRBY LAMM Timee Staff Writer if mi- ,4 20 inauguration. Suddenly, it seems poetry is everywhere, and in celebration, local poets and lovers of rhythm and rhyme will observe National Poetry Week with events scheduled Friday through Oct. 15 in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Roy Williams, a poet himself and president of the Tampa Bay Poets Council, has organized events for youngsters as well as adults, for both beginning and accomplished poets, and spread the activities across eight days. Poetry slams have been going strong for some time now at the Three Birds Bookstore Coffee Room in Ybor City.

Sarasota venues also host poetry slams, which have become popular across the United States. "This is the first time writers' organizations and Please see POETRY Page 8 It began quietly, almost surreptitiously. The rebirth of poetry started with a reading here, a slam (competition) there and a street poet performing in Tampa. It grew as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center made plans for its Off-Center Theater, a small -performance space to be used for programs such as poetry readings. Bookstores and coffee houses began scheduling poetry readings.

Poetry clubs flourished. Then poet Maya Angelou recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning, at President Bill Clinton's Jan. Time photo KATHLEEN CABBLE -A-.