Expected tension turns into breeze

By EDIE GROSS

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 27, 1998

ARPON SPRINGS -- It was a scene fit for a natural disaster.

A round table of city department heads, plotting strategy against an oncoming storm.

A room so full of firefighters that dinner's spaghetti sauce was cooked in a vat and, come nightfall, some would sleep on the floor and in armchairs.

A coastal city so low-lying that most of its land fell in a mandatory evacuation zone.

The only thing missing was Hurricane Georges.

"This is one boring hurricane right now," said Tarpon Springs Police Operations Capt. Joe Farrantelli, who watched weather reports on four television stations in the city's emergency operations center Friday night. "I think it's just waiting until I go to sleep."

But Georges was a no-show.

Firefighters slept fitfully, expecting to be called out on storm-related emergencies throughout the night. But the department's two stations handled far fewer calls than normal -- three medical calls after about 10 p.m.

A police officer at one station said the only storm-related incident he had responded to was an argument a couple was having because one wanted to go to a hurricane shelter and the other did not.

Firefighters, several of whom were on duty for 48 hours straight, passed the time playing computer solitaire, studying for an upcoming lieutenant's exam and waiting on anticipated phone calls that never came from residents.

They watched TV replays of Sammy Sosa and then Mark McGwire hitting their 66th home runs of the season.

When the weather reports offered no new information, they turned to cable to watch Turbulence, a movie about a serial killer who wreaks havoc aboard an airplane traveling through terrible weather.

"It has gone well," fire Chief Harry Leonard said late Friday of the city's plans to protect itself against Hurricane Georges. "In fact, we've been sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for something to happen."

The city had already handed out 15,000 sandbags, and by 6 p.m. Friday, 180 residents had taken shelter at Tarpon Springs Middle School and St. Nicholas Community Center.

By Saturday morning, only 28 people remained in those shelters. Residents had begun calling the city to ask where they could dispose of their burlap sandbags. City officials recommend keeping them for the next storm. Residents who could not drive had relied on the Fire Department to take them to area shelters. The only thing left to do Saturday morning was take them home again.

"I do not like to call them, but it's mighty nice to have them when I need to," said Tarpon Springs resident Mary Louise Garrett, who was taken to Countryside Health Care Center on Friday night during the evacuation. Firefighters Joe Fuller and Tommy Baker took her home the next morning.

"I'd rather be going this way (home) than that way," Garrett said as the ambulance headed for Tarpon Springs.

Residents were lucky they did not suffer a direct hit from Hurricane Georges, said City Manager Costa Vatikiotis. But the city's emergency operations staff was well-prepared for the event and will be again if another storm should threaten, he said.

That's all fine and good, but resident Helen Hamburg, Garrett's neighbor, said she was a little let down by the whole affair.

"I was disappointed," said Hamburg, who spent the night at St. Nicholas Community Center. "All that trouble leaving the house and we get no hurricane. At least it should rain or something."