gulf breeze news 09 11 14

What can be considered as the end of an era for the city came last Fri-day as Mayor Beverly Zimmern, in front of family, friends, and staff, an-nounced her resignation as the Mayor of Gulf Breeze.

“The past 14 years, during which it has been my honor and privilege to serve on the city council and as mayor, have been among the most meaningful experience of my life,” she said.

She is looking forward to spending more time with her family and friends in her golden years.

For the past 14 years, Zimmern has

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September 11, 2014 YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER 75¢

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Residents recall storm that ravaged area 10 years ago

Ten years ago, Hurricane Ivan formed from a large tropical wave southwest of Cape Verde, and grew quickly to become one of the most powerful hurri-canes to ever hit the area.

Following the storm, thousands worked to re-build their lives and what was left of their community. These are there stories. See coverage starting on page 4A.

Ivan the Terrible

Mayor steps down

Mayor Beverly zimmern formally announces her departure as mayor in December. Matt Dannheisser will replace her after her leave.

Photo by Mat Pellegrino | Gulf Breeze News

By Melanie KorMondyGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

Teen to spend next 6 months in hospital

The teen charged with blud-geoning his mother to death in-side her Crane Cove neighbor-hood home on Christmas Eve will be heading back to a state mental hospital for evaluation.

The suspect, William “Bran-don” Aydelott was absent at last Thursday’s status hearing when his lawyers recommended plac-ing the teen back into a state mental hospital—the same hos-pital he spent six months in ear-lier this year.

The teen was deemed incompe-tent to stand trial back in January and was ordered to be placed in a state mental hos-pital. He was re-leased from the hospital in July, where experts claimed the teen was capable to stand trial, and placed into cus-tody at the Santa Rosa County Jail.

At a status hearing after be-ing released from the state hos-

Aydelott

By Mat PellegrinoGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

See Teen Page 2A » See Dannheisser Page 3A »

EXPO GuideInside

4A September 11, 2014 GULF BREEZE NEWS

GULF BREEZE NEWS (850) 932-8986 www.gulfbreezenews.com

Scott Shanks, CFP®Financial Advisor217 Fairpoint Dr.Gulf Breeze, FL 32561850-934-4499www.edwardjones.comMember SPIC

We’ve moved!

Photo Special to the Gulf Breeze News

Locals look on at the devastation following the hurricane in an old office building behind Ace Hardware.

Many people recognize Buck Lee as the Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority.

But before he became famous for wearing Hawaiian shirts, his straw hat emblazoned with “Ole Miss” and his trademark slogan, “Life’s a beach,” Lee was often seen in a business suit represent-ing Santa Rosa County District 5 on the county commission.

Lee and his wife stayed in their waterfront home during the height of the storm.

He knew Ivan was no ordinary hurricane when he witnessed a truck floating down Coral Strip Parkway in three to four feet of water.

“I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never seen anything like that,” Lee remembered. The storm surge filled up the bay and caused the interstate bridge to collapse, leaving a gaping hole into which a tractor truck fell, killing the driver.

The next morning, Lee went to work surveying his district using the amphibious vehicle Midway Fire Department got from a surplus offering.

“Thank God they wanted it,” Lee said, because it was able to traverse the roads that were strewn with debris and s t a n d i n g water.

W h e n the vehicle turned into Villa Ve-nyce subdi-vision, they quickly re-alized that fallen trees were ev-erywhere, blocking the road, so they walked toward Bay Street and found homes moved 30 to 40 feet off their foundation. Bay Street was one of the hardest hit streets in the area.

During his inspection of Na-varre Beach, Lee said he was im-pressed by nature’s handiwork.

“I couldn’t believe how clean it was,” he said. “I saw about 30 tires tied together to form a fishing reef: and there were big conch shells on the sand.”

As commissioner, he needed to report to the Emergency Op-erations Center in Milton, a trip that ordinarily takes about 30 minutes but after Ivan it took al-most two hours.

“It was unbelievable, the damage,” Lee said. “Luckily, the 18 wheelers brought food and water” because businesses had no power so many remained closed. Cell phones were unus-able, hampering communica-tions.

The spirit of community was evident as neighbors helped

Former county commissioner rode out stormBy Lisa NeweLLGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

Lee

I've lived here all my life and I've never seen anything like that.

– W.A. "Buck" LeeFormer Santa Rosa County Commissioner on the view outside his window during Hurricane Ivan

muck out each other’s houses. People soon learned that sheet-rock is sold in three-foot sec-tions even if your home only had three inches of water dam-age. A flurry of activity began when insurance adjusters began inspecting homes.

“Here we are, everybody’s camping out, there was no pow-er. Up and down the neighbor-hood, people are bringing veni-son, fish and meat from their

freezers to cook over charcoal,” Lee said.

Later, Lee accepted the job as SRIA chief and immediately began the work of repairing Pensacola Beach. The storm knocked out the road to Navarre Beach and Fort Pickens.

Homes were being chopped up and removed from the beach, and the projects to repair and rebuild began. Hotels that were destroyed included the Five

Flags Inn, the Holiday Inn, The Clarion Resort and The Dunes.

“A lot of people did not have flood insurance. You need two policies, one for wind and one for flood so get flood insurance just in case,” Lee recommends.

The inside of homes, like this one, were completely gutted by Hurricane Ivan.

Photos Special to the Gulf Breeze News

Homes all over the beach were swept away by water and wind during Ivan's wrath.

(850) 932-2859 100 Daniel Drive | Gulf Breeze, FL 32562

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GULF BREEZE NEWS September 11, 2014 5A


Tiger Point resident Debi Matthews, her husband Dan-ny and their two daughters, a high school freshman and se-nior, were packed and ready to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ivan when Danny and some of the neighbors decided that the threat wasn’t too great. After all, their house was not locat-ed on the water and they were prepared with power tools, cooked food and a generator.

At midnight, their neighbors called the Matthews family to tell them that water was com-ing in their house. The Mat-thews home, a two story, was situated on a little hill and was still dry.

A short while later, water began seeping in to Matthews’ home, which was boarded on the back side but due to a lack of materials, was not boarded in front. The Matthews and some neighbors who took ref-uge at their home put towels around the door thresholds to keep the water out. The winds began in earnest.

“Our solid wood mahogany door started bowing,” Debi recalled. Her husband and a friend used long nails to secure the door. “I was upset because we hadn’t boarded up the front of the house,” she said.

Looking out into the dark-ness, she saw a neighbor’s Jetta with the lights on. Using a flashlight, they realized the car was full of water and the electrical system was shorted out, causing the lights to flash as the car drifted sideways down Bengal Road.

“We realized at that point that there was water that was about to come in our house. We started grabbing what we could to go upstairs, and we could not get to our cars at all,” where they packed all their necessities, including photo albums, in preparation to evacuate. The cars were parked inside the home’s ga-rage which was full of water.

Everyone climbed the stairs to the home’s second story. Sitting at the top of the stairs, Debi called her sister to tell her

the situation. “I didn’t know if we were going to drown or what,” Debi said. “She felt like I was telling her goodbye.”

A friend asked if they had any life jackets. They were up in the attic over the garage and therefore inaccessible.

Just then, the family heard the sounds of someone beat-ing on the front door but the long nails kept it from open-ing. Debi, using her “mother’s instinct,” opened up the front dining room window and in came a deluge of water carry-ing a plastic tub, two dogs and her neighbors. “They were both in shock. They went to the back first and couldn’t get through the back. She went under several times and he lost her several times because it was dark but they finally found their way” around to the unboarded front, keeping ev-eryone together.

At this point, Debi was thankful the front of her house wasn’t boarded up. There was a purpose that was unseen at the time.

“It was to save their lives,” she said.

T h e group made it upstairs, got clean, dry clothes and opened the plastic tub to find three life jackets, one for each of the teens in the home.

“I just sat at the top of the stairs, crying,” Debi said, fearing they would drown or the house would fall apart from the pressure of the storm surge and wind. Her daughter, Melanie, put her arm around her shoulder and said, “Mom, God is going to take care of us. We are going to be OK. We are going to be fine. Just have faith.”

After a long and sleepless night of driving wind, ris-ing water and no cell phone service, the family ventured outside the next morning after storm waters receded. They discovered fish and crabs in their pool, kayaks washed up in their yard and their neigh-borhood in shambles.

Afterward, their family and

several others moved into a friend’s home for a week, with the men sleeping on lawn chairs outside. The Matthews moved into a friend’s vacant house where they lived for 11 months while their home was repaired.

There were some bright spots in the devastation, Debi recalls.

“Everyone helped each oth-er,” she said, but there were some dishonest people who were price gouging, she re-membered.

The Matthews had already endured the loss of their daughter Courtney three years earlier from an extremely rare form of ovarian cancer and were still recovering from that shock when Hurricane Ivan came.

“We are a very faithful fam-ily and we believe that every-thing happens for a reason,” Debi said. If they had evacu-ated or completely boarded up their home, they may not have been able to help their neigh-bors.

A lesson she learned? “Take heed. Don’t ever second guess.”

Neighbors and dogs swim into open windowBY LISA NEWELLGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

Matthews


Matthews describes watching cars fl oat down the street during the storm surge. Many of them ended up like this after the storm.

Photo Special to theGulf Breeze News

Homes like the one pictured were devas-tated by rising waters during Hurricane Ivan.

IVAN STATS

3 Ivan hit the area as a Category 3 hurricane

130 The estimated wind speeds (mph) of the storm

14 People lost their lives in the storm in Florida

3,880 homes were destroyed in the area

2,250 homes were damaged in the area

6 Ivan is the 6th costliest Atlantic Hurricane

$18.8 billion in damages nationwide

10 number of months later when Hurricane Dennis struck

time 17,000 people came through the church’s Fam-ily Life Center to see FEMA agents. Despite having his church torn apart from Hur-ricane Ivan, he continued to serve the people in the com-munity after the storm.

“We could see right away that many of the people (who came into the Family Life Center) had not eaten, so we decided we needed to start serving a breakfast at least for people coming who needed a good meal,” he recalled.

So the church started serv-ing breakfast and lunch to people who needed it every day during that four month period.

“It ended up costing us about $10,000 a month for the meals program. The church took care of the cost, but I believe years later we did get some reimbursement from FEMA,” Hunt said.

Msgr. Hunt said that his church also gave out snacks to people during the after-noon who were waiting to see FEMA agents, especially the children of family members meeting with representatives.

“We basically dropped ev-erything else we were doing at the time for those months and focused on feeding people and helping them with coun-seling if they needed it,” Hunt recalled. “It was a wonderful time of outreach to the entire

community. You could see the desperation in some people’s eyes, especially when they had to come back more than one time. We just tried to help if we could.”

Hunt has been with the church in Gulf Breeze for over 30 years now, and said this was a very memorable event full of blessings for his church staff and members.

The church also served a Thanksgiving Dinner free to about 400 people that year.

“Of course, what we did was in conjunction with other churches in the area, also,” Hunt said. “Everyone was trying to help in their own way.”

The monsignor said out of that event came the Inter-faith Religious Disaster Re-

lief group, made up of several churches in the area. “That group still meets and is still around in case of any emer-gency,” he said. “There are Methodist, and Presbyterian, and Baptist, and Episcopa-lian churches with us in that IDR group. After all, no mat-ter what religion you are, if you need a meal you need a meal.”



Answers from pg 7A

St. Ann steps up to help community after storm

The inside of St. Ann Catholic Church was devastated after the storm. The church’s Family Life Center housed FEMA agents who assisted locals after the storm.

Photo Special to Gulf Breeze News

Photo Special to Gulf Breeze News

Despite the damage inside the church, Msgr. Hunt focused his efforts on getting his community back to normal.

By Pam BrannonGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

Editor’s Note: This is a story written shortly af-ter Hurricane Ivan by Fran Thompson.

An old rugby pal and fellow Breezer, Dougie Dasinger, recently told me a “survival” story about 65-year-old Tom Brandon, United States Naval Academy Class of ‘62, who swam across the Santa Rosa Sound shortly after Hurricane Ivan.

Tom and family rode out the storm in Gulf Breeze at his son Mike’s home, and on Friday after the storm, Tom told his wife Wendy that he was going for a bike ride. Around 10 a.m. he left his bike to attempt to get a glance at his property on Pensacola Beach, hoping to see it from the Live Oak National Sea-shore in Gulf Breeze.

After finding personal be-longings, including a red aluminum boat that had been in his garage, washed up on the north shore of Santa Rosa Sound, Tom decided to try to get a closer look at his prop-erty.

“It was a pretty day, and the

water was calm despite all the debris, and I was almost oppo-site our house,” Tom said. “I thought about taking the boat to the beach, but the Marine Patrol was all over and I was afraid they would see me. So, I found a life preserver, tied my sneakers around my neck and swam across.”

Two hours later, after dodg-ing the Coast Guard, Tom was on the Island headed for his homestead.

He discovered what he expected to find. That their beach home like many oth-ers was a total loss. He also checked on a few neighbors’ homes while he was there.

“The only thing I could find to write notes about my neighbors’ homes was a paper plate,” Tom said.

Tom said he really didn’t want to swim back to Gulf Breeze. So, he started walk-ing up to Via DeLuna Dr.

Once on Pensacola Beach’s main street, Tom was quickly spotted from the air by an Es-cambia County Sheriff’s De-partment helicopter.

The National Guard and

Sheriff’s Department found him and made the assumption they had a hurricane survivor. Tom, not wanting to disap-point his rescue team or face incarceration, agreed enthusi-astically and asked for a ride back to the mainland.

He was taken to the Dome Home, Pensacola Beach’s hurricane proof house built partly with a federal grant, which was being utilized as Police Headquarters at the time, where he was given minor medical treatment for sunburn and dehydration.

Next was the phone call to his family.

Tom, in front of authorities and still fearful of incarcera-tion, called his wife, who was not aware of her husband’s activities that day, and told her he was at the beach, but without food and water.

Wendy said “what are you talking about you SOB, I just fed you four hours ago.”

At that point, Tom put Mark, the owner of the Dome Home on the phone with Wendy.

Wendy was still convinced

Beach resident pulls ‘woolly booger’ to survive


Beach residents walk along roads of devastation to find what’s left of their homes follow-ing Ivan.

Not only were homes destroyed on Pensacola Beach, but a number of beach hotels had their walls and roofs torn off during Ivan, which had wind speeds of well over 100 mph.


Tom had been somewhere pounding beers all day. “No Ma’am, he’s not drunk,’’ Tom assured Wendy. “Just a little shell-shocked and sunburnt.”

After getting off the phone, the Dome Home owner asked Tom how long he had been married.

“Forty-one years” was the reply. The man shook his head and said: “I think I now understand why you spent the hurricane by yourself on the beach.”

An NBC crew working from the house asked to in-terview Tom, but lucky for him, the crew was called

away to interview Florida At-torney General Charlie Crist first. Given the chance to slip out, Tom hitched a ride in the back of a National Guard Humvee across the Bob Sikes Bridge to Gulf Breeze.

The story spread like a wild fire through the close-knit community, some ru-mors labeling him a miracu-lous survivor, others calling him things a little less com-plimentary.

But Wendy was harder to convince. “If I hadn’t had my notes on the paper plate to show her, Wendy would still be mad at me,” Tom said.

Tom Brandon and his wife, Wendy, got a FEMA trailer the November after Ivan after staying with their son Michael in Gulf Breeze while they waited to return to Pensacola Beach. They remained on the beach until Hurricane Dennis tipped the trailer over.

“We’d planned to stay on the beach forever,” Bran-don remembers. “We just loved it.” The Brandons have moved to a home in down-town Gulf Breeze, and do not expect to return to the beach. They still have their lot and hope to sell it.

Monsignor Luke Hunt, of St. Ann Catholic Church in Gulf Breeze, remembers how a request for one month of help from the church as a FEMA center turned into four and a half months of serving meals and helping people get their lives back after Hurri-cane Ivan.

Msgr. Hunt said he had left the local area to go to Can-tonment during the hurricane, and was back home in the rectory one night shortly after

returning when he received a call from the local mayor.

“He said there was an op-portunity to receive some FEMA help for the Gulf Breeze area if they could find a good place for people to come meet with FEMA agents,” Hunt said. “Several people said out church was the only place large enough that they could think of to have the FEMA representa-tives set up to see people. He also said it would be for ‘about a month’. That turned into four and a half months real quickly.”

Hunt said that during that


Gulf Breeze News september 11, 2014 7A

Great question, but no easy answer. It’s really up to a jury at trial. All they are told is to do what is just and fair under

the circumstances. We always have the plaintiff testify as well as

friends, family and co-workers. The more credible a plaintiff, usually the better we do.

How do you put a dollar figure on pain and suffering?

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Solution, Page 6A » Solution, Page 6A »

Solution, Page 6A »

Editor's note: Betty Allen's tribute to her beloved Bay Street home is reprinted from an earlier issue.

I lived for 30 years and then I died. I don’t know why my death was so premature but I know that I did a lot of growing in those 30 years right up until the last two weeks of my life. My beginnings were somewhat more modest than the finished “me” but I had a great foundation on which to build.

I was born on the Santa Rosa Sound in an area near Oriole Beach across from the Santa Rosa Island. The street was called Bay even though it was on the Sound. Bay Street follows an old Indian trail that was later used as a log-ging road to transport live oak trees. These trees were used for the construction of Civil War sailing ships by the Union Navy in the 1860s so it was a very his-toric area in which to be born and raised.

My active life began in No-vember of 1974. But I knew that I had been dreamed about and planned for with a lot love and dedication. I knew I was in a lov-ing family; one who took great pride in how I looked and in the environment in which I grew up.

They made sure that I under-stood that the area where we lived was beautiful and that it over-looked the beautiful waters of the Santa Rosa Sound. Living on the Santa Rosa Sound with an almost constant breeze was very com-fortable especially in the early mornings and the late afternoons. Even throughout the summer months that breeze would still be blowing, warm and pleasant.

The family was seldom plagued by insects as people were who lived inland; oh there were some occasionally, but the fam-

ily would allow the porch screen to clog-up with dirt and escape within the screened area to avoid that annoying pest.

When I was very young I only knew four people; a boy about 12, a girl about 17 and two adults. They were my family, and they were the people who had most to do with the development of my character. There were many other people who had a great deal to do with my development but I knew very early that they would not be an integral part of my life.

I could tell that my family was very proud of me and that they invited people over to show me off; first extended family and then friends. Later as I continued to grow and mature those family and friends appeared to enjoy ev-ery aspect of my character.

The family began to age, the young girl and boy grew up and

went away to school but they would bring their new friends to see me and I would know that these new acquaintances appreci-ated my qualities as well.

As time went by both the boy and girl married and began new families. The members of these two new families would come to visit and enjoy every aspect of the environment that the Santa Rosa Sound had to offer. The small children would come and stay for extended visits without their parents. They would fill my life with laughter, joy and sometimes tears.

By the time of my death I still had not reached my matu-rity; many plans had been made to extend my potential. I was to receive a complete makeover and some of this revision had already begun. My personality was be-ing transformed from a subdued

Part of me died after Hurricane IvanBy Betty AllenGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

quality to a more extroverted am-biance.

But the summer just prior to my death had a strange quality; the breeze visited with less fre-quency and the mosquitoes and other insects were very present in the stillness. The weather was hot and dry and it was more difficult to enjoy the surroundings without frequent excursions in the water.

I should have had a premoni-

tion that something disastrous was going to happen. But both I and my family went happily along planning each day with joy.

Then on the day before I died the winds began to blow. These winds were called Hurricane Ivan. Ivan made landfall about 30 miles east of Oriole Beach. The tidal surge was recorded at 12 feet and the sustained winds were in excess of 120 miles per

hour. The Bay Street community was almost leveled by the flood and winds because most of the existing houses were constructed on-grade and elevation of Oriole Beach is from 5 to 7 feet above mean sea level.

So on September 16, 2004 I died; the wind and water came together and blew out my founda-tion. I was the Allen’s Bay Street home.

Opinion/Public AffairsGulf Breeze NEWS



“Do you feel safe with 9/11

approaching?”

Onthe Spot:

“Yes I do feel safe, I may feel otherwise if I was flying.”

Jane ConnorGulf Breeze

By Mary TranIntern to Gulf Breeze [email protected]

God's word

“Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance..”

— Titus 2:2

“Yes.”

Chris CollinsGulf Breeze

“Yea, I do.”

Bo PeardonGulf Breeze

“Yes.”

Molly WilliamsGulf Breeze

Member:Florida Press Association

National Newspaper Assn.

Gulf Breeze Area Chamber of Commerce

(“2003 Small Business of the Year ”)

Pensacola Beach Chamber of Commerce

Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce

Navarre TouristDevelopment CouncilSanta Rosa County

Chamber of Commerce

PUBLISHERLisa Newell

EDITORMathew Pellegrino

SPORTS EDITORJason Thompson

NEWS REPORTERMelanie Kormondy

InternMary Tran

SALESJanna DeMotts

Ron Thomas

OFFICE MANAGERDoris Pelham

ART DIRECTORNancy Fish

GRAPHIC DESIGNMaite George

CONTRIBUTORS

Betty Archer Allen

Pam Brannon

Jack Kale

Dr. Robert Randel

Clay Bloodworth

Nick Gunter

Scott Page

P.O. Box 1414913 Gulf Breeze Parkway

Harbourtown Unit #35Gulf Breeze, FL 32562

Office: (850) 932-8986Fax: (850) 932-8794

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Gulf Breeze News is published weekly on Thursdays for $35 per year by Gulf Breeze News Inc. Periodical postage paid at Gulf Breeze, Florida. USPS # 021819. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Gulf Breeze News, P.O. Box 1414, Gulf Breeze, FL 32562.All content is copyrighted 2013. Advertising rates are available upon request.

CORRECTIONS: Gulf Breeze News is committed to accuracy and wants to hear from you if we need to make a correction or clarification. Please email us at [email protected] with the subject line CORRECTION or CLARIF-ICATION: call (850) 932-8986 during office hours and ask for news or sports departments.ADVERTISERS: Gulf Breeze News will not be responsible for quality or discoloration in ads provided by the advertiser or its agents.

LETTER POLICY: Gulf Breeze News welcomes your opinion. We reserve the right to edit a letter to fit space available. We do not accept letters containing a personal attack on any individual. Letters must be limited to one per month from an individual writer. If we receive form letters, we will print only the first one we receive. Include your name, address and daytime phone number.

"We've got you covered."

Red solo cup, please pick it upI’d like to address the stu-

dents at Gulf Breeze High School! It is great you want to put Solo cups into the fence holes expressing your pride at being Seniors or supporting the Dolphins. Unfortunately these cups do not last forever and are cur-rently all over the overpass, ramps, and blown onto the surrounding sidewalks and flower beds. Ditto for cups and wrappers from ChikFilA, McDonalds, etc. At the end of the school year there were notebooks, old tests and oth-er litter, apparently thrown from the ramps or scattered about, celebrating summer or graduation. Grow up and take some responsibility, please.

The City has spent a for-tune planting and maintain-ing shrubs, trees and flowers

in the medians and along the new black decorative fenc-ing.

Even if you did not actu-ally trash the areas around your school, how about hav-ing enough pride to pick something up? Maybe carry a trash bag back and forth to the stadium for parking or PE. And if you see someone dropping litter, call them on it.

CeCilia HinesGulf Breeze

Something smells fishy

Maybe I’m the only person

in Gulf Breeze who didn’t know that Mayor Zimmern would not seek re-election.

Maybe it’s only coinci-dence that a hand-picked col-league quietly filed without announcement and thus, be-cause of the timing, will run unopposed for the office.

Obviously the news media was alerted since both Chan-nel 3 and PNJ picked up the story immediately and surely the Gulf Breeze News is re-porting it. Unless this was a last minute decision (and it doesn’t appear that it was since the mayor announced that she had asked Mr. Dannheisser early on to run) then Gulf Breeze would have been better served had an

early, public announcement been made, giving interested candidates time to file and set up their campaigns.

While perfectly legal, I’m sure, it smacks of small town, back room politics. I’m sure that Mr. Dannheisser will do an excellent job, as has Ms. Zimmern, but it didn’t have to be this way.

The council and the mayor have taken several critical hits since the April flood (mostly undeserved in my mind) and a good, old-fashioned race where the candidates get eye to eye with the public would have been a great opportu-nity to revive public interest in what goes on politically in Gulf Breeze.

ToM naileGulf Breeze

Letters to the editor

We had to put our dog to sleep last week. The poor thing, a female chocolate lab, only two and a half years old, was pacing the floor because it was too uncomfortable to sit or lie down. She was so tired and so uncomfortable that we couldn’t watch her deteriorate any more.

My husband named her Brownie because she was chocolate and, well, brown, and as sweet as the dessert.

Initially, I didn’t want an-other dog but Brownie made me fall in love with her. All she ever wanted to do was please us, warming our feet, climbing in our laps and playing fetch with a tennis ball. She loved to accom-pany Bob on his rounds to deliver Gulf Breeze News, jumping effortlessly into the Tahoe then riding calmly in the back seat. At home, she was in and out of the pool so often we began to think of it as her personal pool and we were her guests.

When she got sick, it was as if she had the flu. She was so tired that she didn’t even want to get up off the couch to eat. She began to cough

and she lost the ability to lower her neck to the ground to pick up the newspaper or a ball. She began to stare at the wall or walk backwards.

When we took her to Dr. Laura Hall at East Hill Vet-erinary Center, she agreed that it was an unusual case that could be a number of things including a slipped cervical disk, meningitis or residual effects from a virus contracted when she was a puppy. We started her on a regimen of antibiotics and steroids.

Brownie began to have a spring in her step and a good appetite but she still couldn’t lower her head. X-rays were ordered and the news was not good: Brownie had a mass, most likely neoplasia, arising from the cranial dor-sal region of the chest and

likely a nerve-related tumor growing in her chest cavity that was pressing against her esophagus. The position of the tumor made it nearly impossible to remove.

“I’m sorry to give you this horrible news,” Dr. Lau-ra said. “She is one of the youngest, if not the young-est, patients I have diag-nosed with cancer.”

We sent the results to Au-burn’s veterinary school and they confirmed the diagno-sis.

Back at home, Brownie still wagged her tail and eagerly ate her food, spoon fed to help her keep it down. While she couldn’t pick up a ball with her mouth, she played with it, soccer-style, with her paws. She still en-joyed a dip in the pool.

We knew it was just a mat-

ter of time but we couldn’t decide when we should make the call to put her to sleep. Was it when she stopped eating, wagging her tail, or greeting us at the door?

After several weeks, ex-ternal tumors developed around Brownie’s neck, causing labored breathing and discomfort sitting or ly-ing down. She continually paced the house until she was exhausted. She winced when anything touched her neck area or when she tried to move.

Dr. Laura came to our house, gave Brownie a seda-tive and guided her to the pet bed. She finally was able to rest after the long ordeal, and we all stroked her head and told her she was a good dog.

When we said we were ready, Dr. Laura gave Brownie the injection and she quietly slipped away, and the pain was over.

Our family mourns but knows the decision to put her to sleep was the most humane thing we could do for her. It is hard to watch a living being suffer.

Sometimes we have to let go

“Yes.”

Kelly Brissonnavarre


Gulf Breeze News september 11, 2014 9A

Gulf Breeze High takes biggest hit from storm

Gulf Breeze elementary: $320,579

Gulf Breeze middle: $433,230

Gulf Breeze HiGH: 2,856,098

Holley-navarre intermediate: $375,026

Holley-navarre middle: $488,638

Holley-navarre Primary: $912,608

navarre HiGH ScHool: $1,057,844

oriole BeacH elementary: $690,617

WeSt-navarre elementary: $426,611

WoodlaWn BeacH middle: $376,789

GBN File Photo

The old Gulf Breeze High school sign was blown away during Hurricane Ivan, along with most of the school’s athletic buildings.

Hurricane Ivan made life in Gulf Breeze stop in its tracks as the massive storm’s howling winds whipped through the city, leaving nothing unscathed. Sit-ting directly in the line of fire, taking the wind gusts and flying debris head-on in the heart of Gulf Breeze, were the elemen-tary, middle and high schools.

High School Assistant Prin-cipal Danny Brothers, who was a coach and teacher at the time, said that after the winds died down and he checked his own home for damage, he made his way to the school with fel-low administrators to assess the damage.

“Just getting to the school was treacherous,” Brothers said. “But when I got there, there was structural damage to the roof, heavy leaks in many

of the classrooms and hallways, soaked carpets and a major leak in the gym.”

In 2004, the Gulf Breeze News reported that Gulf Breeze Elementary sustained roof and ceiling damage, as well as blown out windows. Many of the rooms had some debris on the floors, water damage around the doors, and a few dozen rooms did not have air conditioning.

Gulf Breeze Middle School had awnings and siding blown down around the school. Only a few rooms had water damage and broken windows, but the storage shed and the ISS room was damaged and leaking.

Gulf Breeze High School’s athletic facilities took the brunt of the damages, as the press box on the football field was blown down, every light pole at the GBHS baseball field, with the exception of one, was lev-eled, and the bleachers on the home side of the Lady Dolphin

softball field got tangled up in a light pole after the hurricane. The scoreboard and field house were also damaged.

Because the water damage to the gym floor was so bad that

it had to be replaced, the high school volleyball and basket-ball teams used the Gulf Breeze Rec Center to practice and hold games.

Total damages for all three

schools within the city added to approximately $3,609,909, with the high school needing the ma-jority of the work. Total dam-ages for all 10 south end schools reached almost $8 million.

By Melanie KorMondyGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

Photos provided by the Santa Rosa County School District

Before Ivan’s landfall, school staff did everything they knew to do to prepare the schools.

Although the schools were closed for about three weeks, the structures still served the com-munity as military distribution points to give out water, MREs and ice.

Even though Ivan left many students displaced, Brothers said that they did not see a large de-cline in attendance once school re-opened.

“In bad situations such as Ivan, there’s always a little good that comes out of them,” said Brothers. “And one good thing was that it was neat to see the kids rally together to help each other.”

He added that during the time that school was out, students were getting together to help clean up yards, distribute water, and anything else that was need-ed of them.

“It was cool to see everyone roll up their sleeves and get to work,” Brothers said.

Damage by the numbers

Above, a walkway at Gulf Breeze High school was obliterated during the storm. right, a tree fell on the high school, partially damaging the roof. Below, the gymnasium at the high school was the hardest hit during the storm.

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If you had the munchies during Hurricane Ivan, you were most likely sifting through the food that was left in your deep freezer before it went bad, or opening up a box filled with stale crackers, funny tasting peanut butter and questionable meat.

If that doesn’t ring a bell, maybe the letters M-R-E will.

Meals Ready to Eat, as they are called, came wrapped in brown plastic. Inside was a surprise. You might have scored a bag of M&Ms or a mini Tabasco bottle (which many chose to keep for themselves rather than use). But each box of food was a surprise—to both your eyes and your stom-ach.

Each MRE was slightly different. For many, it was the only source of food. For others, it was an obstacle. Trying to get the flameless ration heater to activate so you could boil water to cook the meat inside the MRE was never an easy task. Trying to decide whether to eat what was in the MRE was also quite an assignment. It hardly beat jail food.

As a matter of fact, the juice mix powder that came in each box tasted like it came out of the Santa Rosa County Jail. How do I know this? I spent the night in Santa Rosa County Jail one time…for an assignment of course. And the drink mix in the jail was similar to the MRE’s. Howev-

er, the bologna sandwich was a tad bit better than the questionable horse meat you had to cook up in your MRE.

The chili and macaroni was always a crowd pleaser, and if you were lucky to get a bag of Skittles or even the questionable “cocoa” powder, you had yourself an after dinner treat. Or you could always grab yourself the bag of Tootsie Rolls, which never re-ally tasted like the original Tootsie Rolls you bought in the store.

The MREs were distributed to area residents after the storm, and the meals were what many relied on to eat as they started to run out of food.

Unfortunately, many residents usu-ally opted out for canned vegetables or slices of bread to avoid eating the questionable contents inside the MRE.

Despite the questionable taste and boring brown bag appearance, MREs were a way of life for many following the storm. But hey, we’re all still alive after eating them, aren’t we?

Bon Appétit:BY MAT PELLEGRINO

Gulf Breeze [email protected]

Bon Appétit:Bon Appétit:Meals Ready to Eat

Ivan added many new terms to our vocabulary.

The 50/50 rule. MRE’s. Storm surge. Flood zones. Mold reme-diation.

These, and many other terms came into the vernacular in Northwest Florida after Hurri-cane Ivan.

Instead of football statistics, neighbors lean over newly re-built fences and discuss flood policies, private adjusters, me-diation and the Mierzwa ruling.

Ivan changed our world. Some

people gave up and moved away from Northwest Florida entirely. Some sold their waterfront lots in favor of an inland view.

Many decided it was time to remove the sand pines from their yards before the next big blow sent them crashing onto a roof, shed or car.

Blue roofs became the fash-ion for Northwest Florida homes for a while. Then, the lucky ones who found a roofer had their choice of dimensional tiles rather than the flat shingles from previ-ous years.

Many homeowners coveted their neighbors’ bigger chain-saws.

Some people coveted their neighbors generators so much they stole them.

Every time we turned around, someone was collecting for hur-ricane relief.

Churches were filled with volunteers feeding other vol-unteers, who labored filling car trunks with ice bags and water jugs.

The national guard protected neighborhoods with M16s.

Most businesses did without signs other than the piece of plywood spraypainted with the word “OPEN.”

New folks came to town bringing their chainsaws and

stump grinders, knocking on doors asking for work.

Traffic clogged Highway 98 when the I-10 bridge was dis-abled, and there were many out of state license plates on the cars.

Candles and oil lamps enjoyed a resurgence as people stocked up just in case the power went out again.

Homeowners protected their property with neighborhood watches to prevent looting dur-ing the dark nights after Ivan when many houses were desert-ed, their doors blown open by Ivan’s fury.

Kids enjoyed their month off from school while the county as-

sessed damage. Some attended the free “Hurricane Camp” of-fered by the City of Gulf Breeze and open to any comers at the South Santa Rosa Recreation Center.

The Shoreline park ball fields became the dumping station for yard debris and the Tiger Point Recreation Center became a FEMA trailer park.

Gulf Breeze High School had to use the Rec Center’s basket-ball court as its gym was ruined by a peeled back roof.

Friends helped friends cut out drywall and remove muck from their homes.

Some families opened their

homes to other displaced fami-lies, learning to live together in tough times while so much real estate was uninhabitable.

FEMA, SBA, USAA, MICK-EY MOUSE ... the acronyms seemed to be endless.

At least we got to sit in the St. Ann’s DRC (Disaster Recovery Center) and read a copy of the “Recovery Times.”

The Save Our Homes Initia-tive was enacted to cap property taxes at a certain level.

Still, more disaster struck. Many returned to their homes only to see them destroyed af-ter Hurricane Dennis 10 months later.

New Webster’s Dictionary: Ivan EditionBY LISA NEWELLGulf Breeze News

[email protected]

gulf breeze news 09 11 14

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