Lady Lake, Fla. – Pulling blue tarps over the houses that still had walls, neighbors, jail inmates and National Guard troops picked up amid rain showers Saturday from dead- of-night thunderstorms that chewed through the middle of Florida, killing at least 20 people.
The victims ranged from a 92-year-old man to 17-year-old Brittany May, killed by a falling tree that crushed her bedroom.
President Bush designated four central Florida counties as disaster areas, releasing millions of dollars in aid for recovery and individual assistance.
“It makes you sick to your stomach for what we saw,” David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said after touring the area Saturday morning with Gov. Charlie Crist.
At least one tornado, with winds estimated at up to 200 mph, hit between 3 and 4 a.m. Friday, when few people were awake to hear tornado warnings on radio and TV.
The cleanup task was daunting Saturday as showers soaked roofless homes and piles of twisted aluminum siding, bricks, belongings, tree limbs and lumber. Power lines were down, and traffic signals out in many areas.
Neighbors helped Sherry Reeves, 48, sort through her belongings and patch a hole in her roof. Reeves was amazed that her home wasn’t leveled like hundreds of others in this area about 50 miles north of Orlando.
“The good Lord slipped and missed, or luck of the draw,” she said.
The governor, handling the first natural disaster since he took office, said some stricken areas looked like “the surface of the moon.”
Crist canceled plans to attend today’s Super Bowl in Miami to stay in central Florida.
Crist praised the residents and charitable groups who pitched in to help clean up. Some religious groups served food to rescue workers and victims, while National Guard members distributed blankets, food and water.
Retired school bus driver Jamie Wright had fled South Florida a year ago to escape hurricanes, looking for a peaceful life farther north. Wright, 55, and her boyfriend, Donald Lamond, 49, operators of a produce stand, were killed in their bed.
“We survived Hurricane Andrew in Homestead, and it looked just like this,” her son, Bryan McKiness, said as he collected mementos from the wreckage of his mother’s home.
