Key West woman loses her floating home to Irma

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Carol Schreck thought she had escaped the worst of Hurricane Irma once the deadly storm moved past the Florida Keys.

Aide to Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers, Schreck had even toyed with the idea of not evacuating. She had been offered a secure place to stay in Key West and thought she could help with the recovery if she stayed. She also didn’t want to be too far away from her 53-foot Defever trawler, where she has lived for the past two years. Docked at the Key West Yacht Club, Schreck loved watching sparkling sunsets off the stern, walking her dog, Lulu, through the marina parking lot and enjoying the camaraderie her fellow boaters shared.

“At first I had to make sure my boat was secure. That takes time and help,” she said. And after the boat was tied down late Friday afternoon in preparation for the storm, she thought it was too late to evacuate. “My biggest fear was that I would be stuck under an underpass when the storm hit,” she said.

Still on the fence about leaving, Schreck ran into a friend who is a public works employee for Monroe County. He was scared, Schreck remembers. “He said, ‘Carol, you have to go.’”

So she did, driving until midnight with her dog to reach her brother’s home in Port St. Lucie. His home had hurricane shutters and never lost power, the first good news. And with the dawn Monday, she, like tens of thousands of others, began looking for information on how Key West had fared.

Spared a direct hit and the predicted devastating storm surge, Schreck was feeling optimistic. Facebook posts and television newscasts said Key West was impacted but property damage seemed limited.

“I thought I was OK,” she said.

But around noon Monday, the day after Irma hit the Keys, Bob Harvey, the former commodore of the yacht club, called with bad news. He had evacuated but friends had access to his Key West apartment, where there was a functioning fax line. They told him that Carol’s boat had sunk in its slip. The next day, the yacht club general manager called her to confirm the bad news. The story of the sinking was heartbreaking.

“Some of the guys walked the [yacht club] dock during a lull in the storm. They saw my boat listing and jumped into the water to see what was happening,” Schreck was told.

The good Samaritans found large pieces of what seemed to be concrete jetty material, likely broken pieces of the Garrison Bight pier undergoing repairs across the inlet. They tried to secure the pieces to the dock but the storm was picking up intensity again and they had to leave. When they returned, her boat had sunk, still tied to the dock. Another nearby boat at the marina had damage to its swim platform from the broken pier material but only Schreck’s boat was fatally damaged.

“Mine was hit the worst, as far as I’ve been told,” she said, adding that she had removed her jewelry, important papers and passport from the boat before she left Key West. But her clothes, her home and safe harbor are gone.

Schreck is determined not to give up the lifestyle she has worked so hard to create. She is looking at boats for sale while she is sheltering on the mainland and shopping for new work clothes. Friends have offered her temporary places to stay once residents are allowed back into Key West. She is trying to stay positive. But she is also remembering the not-so-small things that went down with the boat. Her number one hope is that she can salvage her great-grandmother’s mixing bowl, which was stored in her kitchen cupboard.

“That bowl mixed generations of apple pies. It was passed down to me because I like to cook and bake. I hope I can get it back,” she said. “I’m trying to catch my breath and regroup and make myself whole.”

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