The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 19

jj Sunday, September 19, 1999 Send comments and tips through e-mail to: floridametrotampatrib.com LAWRENCE FLETCHER, Senior EditorNews, (813) 259-7626 CHERYL NORDBY SCHMIDT, Senior EditorRegion, (813) 259-7523 FloridaMetro fax, (813) 259-7676 The Tampa Tribune "5 Area weapon buyback Storm of '26 floated house Head arvest reaps a it -fed 1 WJV umutu.iiSiammmmmmt i 1 rnerv-rsmm JAY NOLANTribune photos All kinds of firearms were turned In during Saturday's Cease Fire gun buyback held In Hillsborough, Pasco, Sarasota and Manatee counties. Law enforcement officers handed out gift certificates In exchange for the weapons. r- I'WMf STEVE ono Columnist So why are you sticking around here? Why do we do this? Tell me you aren't just about up to here looking at pictures of guys with drills putting up plywood on their homes. And then there were the same videos of the empty shelves at the grocery store after we bought out all the water, batteries and Fig Newtons. (You buy what you need, I buy what I need.) Last week, a good chunk of the population of Florida living on the east coast tried to run to the west coast for cover.

Most of them ended up stuck on Interstates 95 or 4. Where we all would have gone if Floyd had headed our way, I have no clue. After a while, you begin to wonder if it is all worth it. Rob Morse, who used to columnize in Florida, now does his thing in California. He wrote in the San Francisco Examiner the other day, wondering about those who would live in Florida, "the state of less-than-bibli-cal plagues like hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, bugs, snakes, tourists, theme parks, monster truck derbies and cheap housing developments." "Whenever a hurricane tears up the Florida coast," he wrote, "Californians naturally have to ask some questions about that wacky state of grapefruit and gun nuts.

Are hurricanes divine punishment for Floridians' Sybaritic lifestyle of shuffleboard, jai alai, driving on the beach and one-stop shopping for beer, ammo and bait?" THIS IS PRETTY heady stuff for someone who lives in the same state with Los Angeles and where the state motto is "Waiting for the Big One." But this column is not about California. There isn't enough space to do proper justice to the weirdness of the 0 J. State. Today's question is Florida. For most of us, Florida was pretty much uninhabitable before air conditioning.

There are those who will argue otherwise, claiming that in the days of screen porches and a slower lifestyle, Florida was a great place to be. They say this while sitting in air-conditioned rooms in front of the TV. Unfortunately, right after air conditioning came to Florida, so did about 30 million people. And they are still coming. Subdivisions have replaced swamps.

There are so many people that the airplanes spraying malathion to kill fruit flies also drop their stuff over neighborhoods and swimming pools. The roads that used to get crowded during tourist season or the 5 o'clock rush are now permanently jammed. And still they come. SO WHY DO we put up with this? I don't know. Maybe I should ask some of the people down on Boliche Boulevard who are sitting in some Cuban restaurant eating a mountain of black beans and rice, a palomilla steak and then washing it down with sangria for under 10 bucks.

Maybe I could ask one of the three guys I play tennis with some night in February when it's cool enough to wear a light jacket while we hit Maybe I could think it over one afternoon while sitting out on Clearwater Beach watching thunderboomers in the far distance while deciding where to go for stone crab claws that night Maybe the answer might come to me while we're grilling burgers out in the back yard in November or taking a canoe down the Alalia. Maybe it's because we can be walking down a Greek village sidewalk in Tarpon Springs, eating greens and fried chicken at a Cracker restaurant in Zolfo Springs or going to a great French restaurant in Bermuda shorts at Epcot with a thousand other tourists. Maybe it's sitting with 80,000 screaming 'Noles when Chief Osceola hurls the flaming spear to the turf or meandering through the world's biggest flea market in Webster. Shoot, it might even be a drizzling day in February when pirates throw beads and we head out to the fair for corn dogs and Ferris wheels. Maybe Florida isn't what it was, but that might not be all bad, either.

DADE CITY A man remembers a killer hurricane from a time when storms weren't named, tracked by computer. By BILL THOMPSON of The Tampa Tribune In his temporary abode on the eighth floor of the Edwinola re- tirement home, Fred H. Czerner knows all too well what it is like for the drenched and homeless victims of Hurricane Floyd. As the Czerner monstrous storm trekked through the Bahamas and churned along the Atlantic coast, Floyd stirred Czerner's memories of a time when a mas- sive hurricane nearly took his life. On Sept.

18, 1926, one of the' fiercest hurricanes ever recorded rocked South Florida. An esti- mated 400 people drowned in Glades and Hendry counties when winds up to 135 mph caused Lake Okeechobee to overflow 3 miles of dikes along its See HURRICANE, Page 9 Cleanup of Bay area nets 95 tons TAMPA The garbage collected during International Coastal Cleanup is held in disdain by most people, but not all. I By JANET LEiSER of The Tampa Tribune To the volunteers who picked up the discarded trash along Florida's coastline Saturday, it was ugly garbage that marred the natural beauty of the state's beaches and rivers. Sometimes, though, one per-; son's garbage is another's trea- sure. I There are those who think the discards are artifacts full of in- valuable information about a and their customs.

"Garbage is what we dig See CLEANUP, Page 9 John and Cheryl Simpson, back, and Leigh-Ane and Kirk Simpson look over family photos of Cheryl Simpson's mother, Eileen 1 Mangold. Kirk Simpson was seven days old when his grandmother 1 was killed. -c vv-u HOWETrlbune photo Stefanle Ahner of Tampa Children's Hospital holds a gun turned in by the father of Dominique Avery, 8, at the Tampa police station on North 30th Street. said. "Once they turn them in, they can't be used." This year, 1,926 guns were turned in, while last year 1,300 were handed in.

One reason for the increase was that more cities and counties participated. To amass a larger arsenal, the Tampa Police Department and Hillsborough TAMPA Some families say it's a relief to know they have taken guns out of their homes to a safe collection site. By JOSE PAT1NO GIRONA of The Tampa Tribune Several years ago, Wayne Alcorn of Valrico bought a semiautomatic pistol for home protection. Now he says he doesn't need the metal piece for safety. "I have no use for it," Alcorn said.

"What would I do with it anyway? I don't want to shoot nobody." Alcorn was one of more than 1,900 people in a four-county area who sold their guns to law enforcement during the Cease Fire Gun Buyback, held Saturday in Hillsborough, Pasco, Sarasota and Manatee counties. Throughout the day, adults of all ages arrived at the buyback locations with semiautomatic pistols, hunting guns, sawed-off shotguns, AK-47s, and World War I and II relics. Some said they were concerned about having a firearm around the house, where their children or grandchildren might find the gun and accidentally injure themselves or someone else. And they received a $40 gift certificate for Winn-Dixie Marketplace grocery stores or Bealls department stores in exchange for the weapon. "It gets rid of pistols and shotguns that might kill someone someday," Alcorn Unsolved murder HIUSBOROUGH Mat Btoqmingdal4.Av Hackney Dr RIVERVIEW Ooton Dr Bo MO (1 Sept.

19, 1989, 9:15 p.m. Store clerk Eileen Mangold is abducted in her station wagon at the Kangaroo Fuel Stop. Sept. 20, about 2 a.m. Station wagon found.

Sept. 20, about 11 a.m. Body found. CAITLIN HOPE WRIGHTTrtbune map Eileen abducted convenience murdered, searches By JOSE of The Judie the get out took the her sister murdered. As site eight grief her and to The stopped haunt "I Alders home in too there are world Slaying casts shadow 10 years later RIVERVIEW-Ten years after Carol Mangold was from a store and her family still for answers.

PATINO GIRONA me, my nieces and nephew are going through, but that doesn't make it any easier." Ten years ago today, Eileen Carol Mangold was robbed of less than $100 and abducted on a moonless night from a Riverview convenience store i t-Jf. Ml County Sheriffs Office teamed up with law enforcement offices in Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties. Convenient drop-off centers were opened in each county. The Tampa Police Department re-See BUYBACK, Page 10 KEVIN r. JJ 9 i i where she worked.

She was forced to drive her 1984 Ford LTD station wagon as the robber sat in the passenger seat. As she drove away, customers saw her honking and yelling: "Help, it's a robbery! I'm being robbed! I'm being robbed!" Two teenagers Tampa Tribune Alders gathered strength to of the car and several steps toward place where was found she neared the years ago, overwhelmed she was unable continue. feelings that her then still Eileen Mangold was found murdered In 1989. driving into the Kangaroo Fuel Stop, 7415 U.S. 301, phoned 911 to report her frantic plea at 9:15 p.m.

Her body was discovered 14 hours later about two miles from the store. See SLAYING, Page 10 her today. couldn't go all the way," said recently from her Florida, N.Y. "It was difficult I am sure that other people in the going through what.