82-y/o Fireman Homeless After Irma
Donation protected
My wife and I have a house on No Name Key in the Florida Keys. We’re in a very small neighborhood of about eight houses, surrounded by acres of state and federal wildlife preserve land.
No Name Key is at MM 32, directly east of Big Pine Key. That was Ground Zero when Hurricane Irma made landfall and destroyed our community. It was a paradise. Now it looks like a war zone. The extent of the destruction is hard to believe.
Our good neighbor Bob Eaken lived at the end of our island. His home was perched on an incredible expanse of open bay and a view of the water and the small islands that dot the horizon. But that was before Hurricane Irma blew off Bob’s roof and his entire top floor. The possessions that Bob accumulated over 82 years are now spread in a giant debris field that fans out over half a mile into the “protected” mangroves behind his house. Bob has nowhere to sleep, nowhere to live, and doesn’t even have a stairway to get up to the first floor that’s precariously perched on concrete stilts 12 feet above the debris-strewn ground.
Imagine an 82-year old man climbing a ladder to even get into his wreck of a home. And Bob knows about ladders -- he's a retired fireman who dedicated his life to saving others in danger.
Luckily Bob evacuated to Miami to weather the storm with us. When we were permitted back on the island and returned with him last Sunday, we gathered up his entire life (or what’s left of it) into five soggy garbage bags.
Why Bob’s story is so interesting is that he single handedly built our “Island’s End” community over 30 years ago. Bob was a Ft. Lauderdale firefighter at the time and would drive down on weekends to carve his dream out of the mangroves. Bob dredged the canal, cleared the roads, and built four or five of the houses in the neighborhood. Up until this disaster, Bob was still hopping on and off his boat, scampering up and down his stairs (now gone), and doing maintenance on his house as well as all of his neighbors’ homes. You and I should be lucky enough to be in the shape Bob’s in when we’re his age.
Now Bob is hoping for FEMA money and a trailer so he can rebuild his home from the sad and soggy wreck it is post-Irma. But I’m convinced that Bob is the kind of guy that everyone will want to help. Besides FEMA, firefighter organizations, and a generous public would want to help Bob too if they just knew his story. I’m also convinced that Bob’s story is a great story of American ingenuity, a can-do attitude, and the indomitable spirit that can inspire so many of us. Telling Bob’s story and rebuilding his house will go a long way to help ease some of the pain people are feeling.
Estimates are that it will take between $100,000 and $200,000 to rebuild Bob’s home. We already have a contractor who is working at below cost and scores of neighbors who are providing the labor to clear the wreckage from Bob’s life. Now we need money for supplies, heavy equipment, and skilled craftspeople. Our plan is to have use the funds you donate to reimburse the tradespeople and to pay for the materials we purchase to repair Bob’s home.
Bob’s story really illustrates the damage the storm did to our lives and our psyches. I believe your generoisty will go a long way to helping a very deserving neighbor rebuild his home AND his life.
I hope you do, too.
By the way, if you’re interested in who’s managing this project, my name is Bruce Turkel and my wife is Gloria Turkel. We are working with our Miami neighbor and General Contractor Reynaldo Alvarez from Sama Construction to help our friend Bob Eaken get his life back on track.
Thank you.
No Name Key is at MM 32, directly east of Big Pine Key. That was Ground Zero when Hurricane Irma made landfall and destroyed our community. It was a paradise. Now it looks like a war zone. The extent of the destruction is hard to believe.
Our good neighbor Bob Eaken lived at the end of our island. His home was perched on an incredible expanse of open bay and a view of the water and the small islands that dot the horizon. But that was before Hurricane Irma blew off Bob’s roof and his entire top floor. The possessions that Bob accumulated over 82 years are now spread in a giant debris field that fans out over half a mile into the “protected” mangroves behind his house. Bob has nowhere to sleep, nowhere to live, and doesn’t even have a stairway to get up to the first floor that’s precariously perched on concrete stilts 12 feet above the debris-strewn ground.
Imagine an 82-year old man climbing a ladder to even get into his wreck of a home. And Bob knows about ladders -- he's a retired fireman who dedicated his life to saving others in danger.
Luckily Bob evacuated to Miami to weather the storm with us. When we were permitted back on the island and returned with him last Sunday, we gathered up his entire life (or what’s left of it) into five soggy garbage bags.
Why Bob’s story is so interesting is that he single handedly built our “Island’s End” community over 30 years ago. Bob was a Ft. Lauderdale firefighter at the time and would drive down on weekends to carve his dream out of the mangroves. Bob dredged the canal, cleared the roads, and built four or five of the houses in the neighborhood. Up until this disaster, Bob was still hopping on and off his boat, scampering up and down his stairs (now gone), and doing maintenance on his house as well as all of his neighbors’ homes. You and I should be lucky enough to be in the shape Bob’s in when we’re his age.
Now Bob is hoping for FEMA money and a trailer so he can rebuild his home from the sad and soggy wreck it is post-Irma. But I’m convinced that Bob is the kind of guy that everyone will want to help. Besides FEMA, firefighter organizations, and a generous public would want to help Bob too if they just knew his story. I’m also convinced that Bob’s story is a great story of American ingenuity, a can-do attitude, and the indomitable spirit that can inspire so many of us. Telling Bob’s story and rebuilding his house will go a long way to help ease some of the pain people are feeling.
Estimates are that it will take between $100,000 and $200,000 to rebuild Bob’s home. We already have a contractor who is working at below cost and scores of neighbors who are providing the labor to clear the wreckage from Bob’s life. Now we need money for supplies, heavy equipment, and skilled craftspeople. Our plan is to have use the funds you donate to reimburse the tradespeople and to pay for the materials we purchase to repair Bob’s home.
Bob’s story really illustrates the damage the storm did to our lives and our psyches. I believe your generoisty will go a long way to helping a very deserving neighbor rebuild his home AND his life.
I hope you do, too.
By the way, if you’re interested in who’s managing this project, my name is Bruce Turkel and my wife is Gloria Turkel. We are working with our Miami neighbor and General Contractor Reynaldo Alvarez from Sama Construction to help our friend Bob Eaken get his life back on track.
Thank you.
Organizer
Bruce Turkel
Organizer
Miami, FL
