Thread: Florida: Immigrants lack storm information

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Some of county's poor worried, feeling trapped

Immigrants lack storm information



By Edward Sifuentes
and Sandra Hernandez Staff Writers

August 25, 2005



Modesta Calderon, a mother of four children, had done little to prepare for Tropical Storm Katrina by Wednesday afternoon.

Calderon, 34, heard about the storm late in the day just before leaving the fields west of Delray Beach where she picks tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce.

Calderon's family, who lives in a trailer near the fields, is among South Florida's most vulnerable residents -- those with little money, poor housing and a lack of information.

"I haven't bought anything," she said. "The boss told us about the hurricane."

Communicating with immigrant agricultural workers can be difficult because of their geographic and linguistic isolation, said Dulce Reyes, an outreach worker with the Guatemalan Mayan Center in Lake Worth. She holds workshops, often in mobile home parks, to teach them what to do to prepare for tropical storms.

Some of the people she teaches speak only Mayan dialects that bear little resemblance to Spanish.

"A lot of these people don't speak English or Spanish," she said. "They really don't understand what to do."

Last year's hurricanes destroyed many immigrant families' dilapidated mobile homes, according to the Mayan Center and other nonprofit agencies.

"It's just the fact that these homes are not resistant to the wind," Reyes said. "They have mold problems. Even with little storms, water comes through the ceilings. They are old trailers."

Patricia Ramirez, who lives in a trailer next to the Calderon family, said she doesn't trust her home to withstand a hurricane. She and her family took refuge at a local shelter during last year's storms and plan to do so again.

"Last year, they were very strong," she said, while having dinner with her husband and another couple. "If this one becomes strong, we'll have to find shelter."

The Ramirez's TV was tuned to a Spanish-language newscast. Ramirez said she heard about the storm and started to stock up on water, canned food and snacks.

Her trailer is furnished with an old couch and small dining set. Holes in the carpet reveal loose floorboards. The door is propped open with a garden tool for ventilation.

But immigrants aren't the only residents who are especially vulnerable to hurricanes.

"I'm out of money, so I don't have many options," Helen Kaminsky said from a trailer at the Hitching Post Mobile Park in Dania Beach. "I've boiled a few eggs. I don't know why. I suppose I could eat them if worse comes to worse."

Now retired, much of the $800 Kaminsky gets each month from Social Security is nearly gone, leaving her little to spend on hurricane supplies. The only provision she has made is setting aside $50 for a night's stay at a motel and a cabinet of canned foods.

Kaminsky's story is repeated across the region's modest neighborhoods, where families living on fixed incomes wonder how they will make it through the month when money runs low.

"Right now, I have 35 cents left in my purse and the food in the refrigerator," said Luisa Paulino, 47, who moved from Tampa to Davie seven months ago. "I've never lived through a hurricane and I'm afraid if the electricity goes, then the little food I have left will spoil and then we will have nothing."

Paulino and her two sons live in a government-subsidized apartment building with few furnishings. The $245 she gets each month and food stamps are already gone by this time of the month.

Already stretched thin, Paulino fears the hurricane will eat into next month's funds and force her to cancel her monthly visit to a Miami hospital where her 20-month-old granddaughter remains with a heart condition. "I don't think I can afford the bus and train fare."

Still, some were unfazed by the looming storm.

Sitting on the stoop of his Davie mobile home surrounded by discarded cables, hedge clippers and broken clocks, Stuart Salvage, 56, said he plans to listen to the storm alongside his trained dog that can "dial 911 if I need him to," he said.

Legally blind, he will not go to a shelter because he fears his dog won't be allowed in because it's not certified as a Seeing-Eye dog.

"I sit here and listen to things being destroyed. I can hear the stuff blowing around, the metal coming down. The avocados sound like bombs being dropped," he said, adding that his only concern is a neighbor's towering pine tree that leans toward his property at the Western Hills Estate mobile home park in Davie.

"If that comes down, I'm in trouble," he said.

Modesta Calderon, a mother of four children, had done little to prepare for Tropical Storm Katrina by Wednesday afternoon.

This would be considered felony child abuse in some states.

"A lot of these people don't speak English or Spanish," she said. "They really don't understand what to do."

How about this for an easy fix...just tell them to complain to the folks that invited them here in the first place.