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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Miami Herald
Byline: Marc Caputo
Oct. 28--At the first sound of helicopters, Joe Sency clambered atop his roof crushed by a massive mahogany and started to spray-paint a message in red: "3 little girls need FEMA."
"I wanted an exclamation point. But wouldn't you know it? I ran outta paint," Sency said, his wry laugh tinged with fatigue.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency never showed up nor did local officials -- the first line of defense in disasters -- and Sency wasn't surprised. The choppers overhead were from a television news station recording the damage.
Like a growing number of people in storm-scarred Florida, the soon-to-be homeless family of five is growing accustomed to the sense of pessimism and the ironies wrought by a second mean season that was capped by Hurricane Wilma. It was the fourth hurricane to hit Florida, following Dennis, Katrina and Rita.
Not only did the spray paint run out for the Sencys, so did the power for them and millions of others. So did the gasoline. So did the propane. So did the food. So did the luck. And so did the patience.
For the first time ever, just one hurricane sowed a similar story in major cities throughout the southern peninsula.
The damage, hundreds of miles wide, only scratched the lives of...
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