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Article
Courtesy of the Palm Beach Post
By
Emily Minor
Thursday, September 2, 2004
Perspective
is a good thing to have right now.
That, and a decent drill bit.
Which is why I am telling you about Glenda
Howie, 57, who lives alone in her waterfront apartment in The Marina at the
Bluffs in Jupiter.
Howie was panicking Wednesday, and for good
apparent reason.
"They want me to take down my
plywood," Howie said. "Everything I own is in this place."
Howie, who is living at The Bluffs while she
builds a new house, hired workers to cut and install plywood on the windows
and doors of her first-floor condo.
"I'm from Florida," she said. "I
know what hurricanes can do."
But she says the minute the workers got most of
the plywood up, the condo manager roared in with orders to remove all of it
because "it hasn't been approved by the board."
"You know these condos," she said.
"It's all about control."
The hubbub obviously upset Howie, who said she
never planned to live there long enough to have real shutters made. As of late
afternoon, the plywood remained. But she wasn't so sure about the outcome.
"I just had the police come out, and she
told me they had no right to take down my plywood," Howie said.
"Everyone is telling me I could sue. But I don't want a lawsuit — I
just want my things protected."
This made my troubles — one house, one kid,
one husband, two cats and no condo board to contend with — seem so much
simpler. So, as the afternoon waned and our stomachs churned right along with
Frances, I went searching for others preparing for the storm whose lives are
more complicated than mine.
I didn't have far to look.
Jerry Flatow, is a property manager, which
means he's in charge of other people's property, which means he has roughly
594 windows at 33 different condos and houses to board up. Luckily, he employs
about 28 people.
"It's a nightmare," says Flatow, of
Property Management Resources Inc.
He can't count the pieces of pool furniture
they will have to drag in. They've got all those clubhouses to seal up. There
are sump pumps and weirs and storm sewers to worry about.
But the good news, according to him?
"I don't do it personally," he said.
"I'm sitting behind a nice fat desk.
Lisa Mattioli works at Home Depot and is
usually arranging cute store displays. You know, the paint can with the paint
brush, a roller and a ragging kit. But starting Tuesday, she got phone duty.
And this is how she answered on Wednesday:
"Thank you for calling Home Depot. We have no generators but we do have
lumber and plywood."
Normally at the store in suburban Lake Worth,
there are about 400 incoming calls a day. On Tuesday, they had more than
1,000. By Wednesday morning, the lumber line stretched back to the electrical
department, and Mattioli had no idea when she'd be able to leave and take care
of her personal matters.
"The last time we had a storm, I got out
of here about two hours before it was supposed to hit," she said.
And then, some real perspective.
How about Theresa LePore, our ousted election
supervisor. (At least we think she's been ousted.)
How
would you like to work a million hours in a row, be nearly sick from lack of
sleep, lose the election of your life, then go home and board up for a
hurricane? Even U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, LePore's nemesis, would have to feel
for her on this score. Paper trail, or not.
COMMENT:
This is not the only example where condo boards clearly went over board with
preparations for Frances on the way! I received more than one e-mail complaining
about unreasonable association boards. And
despite unreasonable condo commandos, please stay safe and dry! Even
if association attorneys claim that deed-restrictions supersede our
CONSTITUTION, the welfare and safety of our citizens and their property
definitely supersede the beautification feelings of some overzealous board
members! There
should be a storm of outrage after the real storm named Frances has passed --
hopefully without leaving too much damage.
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