07/04/1998
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Prayers for rain, worries abound in midst of blazes
BRYAN LONG
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- The skies of Volusia and Flagler counties seemed to mock the prayers of east Florida residents Friday. As the number of homes threatened by dozens of wildfires continued to rise, so did the plumes of black smoke.
The smoke filled the sky to create the illusion that at any moment the clouds might burst and the ground would be soaked with liquid salvation.
In fact, some rain did come from several storms, but it would take several days of heavy rain to help firefighters get the fires under control.
Until that happens, ashes will continue to fall like snow. Many of the thousands of people forced from their homes continued to pray for more rain, just as Gov. Lawton Chiles had asked.
The tragedy of the firestorms are unlike those suffered in Florida's recent past. These fires are not a hurricane. They are not a tornado.
�This is different because the fear is ongoing," Sarasota resident Mary Florio said Friday morning. She and fellow Red Cross volunteer, Dan Carlson, also from Sarasota, were taking a break from making the 600 daily meals served to firefighters and support workers in Volusia County.
�Over here it's bad,� Carlson said.
�Once you have been hit by the tornado and everything is over, you're in shock and you start to recover,� Florio said. With this �you don't recover. You're anticipating disaster daily, nightly.�
The fires have been burning in this area for nearly six weeks. Officials are in the midst of fighting 41 fires in two counties. Fire crews are not gaining any ground. They are simply protecting structure after structure as the fire burns its way across the landscape.
Eugene and Martha Rivere know firsthand that danger is never far away.
After evacuating their Palm Coast home Thursday afternoon, they spent the night in a disaster shelter with friends. But then, just as suddenly as the day before, police bullhorns bellowed in the streets that evacuation was mandatory.
This time the evacuation was for all of Flagler County.
�Naturally, we're worried,� Eugene Rivere said. �We're old and we worked very hard for our home.�
By midafternoon, the Riveres did not know if their home had been saved.
�I called to see if the answering machine would pick up,� Martha Rivere said. �I figure if the machine picks up, everything's OK I didn't know what else to do.�
The machine did answer, but the Riveres are still worried. Officials in all of the affected counties have been slow relaying information to property owners because of the intensity of the fight with the fire.
�I just want to know what's going on,� Eugene Rivere said as he watched live coverage on the television in the nearly empty Seabreeze High School cafeteria and makeshift disaster evacuation center.
The coverage, whether from television or radio, has become the standard background noise in gas stations, restaurants, hotel lobbies and nearly every other public place.
Television anchors who have been working around the clock for days talk about the fires as if they were animals.
�It's running west again,� one of the numerous background voices said. �It really has nowhere else to go.�
And in this frantic, 24-hour din of warnings, notices and updates, Chiles made his plea.
�The most critical thing we need now is people's prayers that we get some relief from this weather,� Chiles said.
In the following hours, people responded. City commissioners in numerous towns unofficially named Sunday as a day of prayer. Churches in Daytona Beach announced inter-denominational prayer services.
But about 30 miles north in the vast burning wilderness surrounding the tiny town of Bunnell, time for prayer is a luxury few have. The walls of flame have been clocked moving as fast as 35 miles an hour.
Firefighters returned from the field with dark, ash-covered faces. They work to the brink of exhaustion and then break as briefly as they can.
And people such as Paul Edwards have chores to take care of, mandatory-evacuation or not.
Edwards trots atop his horse, Apache, along an empty stretch of Highway 1. By his side are two mares, Swiss Miss and Sunshine.
Orange embers sizzle on the blackened ground, street signs are twisted and melted and traces of smoke wisp into the air.
Edwards seems calm as he moves his horses to a safer barn.
�They said to evacuate,� he said. �I take it to mean all of us.�