NAPLES, Fla. — It’s a little piece of Florida heaven called Holiday Manor that sits about 10 miles or so from the ritzy part of Naples and proudly calls itself “Retirement’s Finest Mobile Home & RV Park.”
But as the retirees who call it home sat huddled in storm shelters while Hurricane Irma raged, many wondered if anything would be left once the storm passed by.
So it was with genuine surprise — and undisguised pleasure — when they returned Monday to the unassuming mobile home park near the Tamiami Trail and saw many of their homes still standing.
“If the power was on and all that, I could move right back in here,” said 70-year-old Mike Wright, who has lived in the park for a decade. “This isn’t that bad. This is all just clean-up. It’s nothing, really.”
Photos: After Irma: Floridians Awake to Damage and Darkness
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“For our first hurricane, I think we fared well,” said 64-year-old Marcia Ashby, who moved down six years ago with her husband Paul from Canton, Ohio, to be close to their grandchildren. “We’ve never been through a hurricane before. It was a rough storm.”
Paul Ashby, 64 and blessed with a white-as-snow beard, proudly disclosed that he plays Santa for the kids every year at the Walmart a short walk from their mobile home. But as the subject returned to the storm that could have obliterated their world, he could not stop himself and began crying.
“You see stuff like [Hurricane] Harvey, but you never expect it to be real,” he said.
There are about 300 or so homes in the park and several appeared to be badly damaged when an NBC News photographer visited.
Irma peeled the roofs off of a few of the structures like a can opener, giving a bird’s eye view of the modest lives of the hardworking people who settled here after many years up north.
“I don’t understand, it’s almost like a tornado,” said 86-year-old Richard Nowak as he surveyed the damaged at his home.
Nowak said he and his home had gotten through Hurricane Wilma in 2005 without a scratch.
“Wilma was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as this,” said Nowak, who rode out Irma at North Naples Middle School.
But other people had it worse, Nowak noted, nodding in the direction of the part of the park that sustained even more damage.
“This is nothing here, the worst is farther down,” he said.
Marilee and Bill Ryan live in New Jersey and rent out the mobile home in the park they inherited. They were sitting in what was once a screened-in porch. The roof was blown off, the blinds were tattered, and more debris were dangling from the ceiling.
“I know we were hit by a hurricane, but it also feels like a tornado came through here because of the hit and miss damage to some homes and not other homes,” Marilee Ryan, 65, said.
They had come down to babysit the property and wound up in a shelter with the full-time residents.
Marilee Ryan said she was impressed with how Florida authorities, in particular Gov. Rick Scott, handled the calamity. And she gave deeply unpopular New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a swift kick to the shins.
“They really know how to prepare you,” she said. “People seem like they respect and listen to the governor. He came on TV and people heeded what he had to say. Now, we’re from New Jersey, they wouldn’t pay attention to the governor up in New Jersey.”
On its web site, Holiday Manor boasts a swimming pool and hot tub. There are facilities for shuffleboard and billiard tournaments and horseshoe competition. There is even a tranquility pond and a fishing dock.
“We’ve got a wonderful social committee that ensures everyone will enjoy an active life,” it says.
But the only activity Shannon Hill was focused on was helping her mom Linda Humphries navigate through the debris-strewn road to her damaged home.
“It was pretty ferocious,” said Humphries, 76. “I’ve been through a lot hurricanes before but this one was different.”
It was not immediately clear when residents like Humphries would be allowed to return to their homes — to their happy hours and dancing under the stars at the club house.
Choking back tears, Humphries said she wonders if Hurrianes Irma and Harvey, which tormented Texas, were part of the Almighty’s plan.
“Maybe it’s a wake-up call for all of us between Texas and here,” she said. “The man upstairs knows what he’s doing. He put it here and he can take it away and I think he’s showing us that. I think we should stop fussing and fighting and get together and be human beings for a change. Democrats, Republicans, who cares? We’re Americans, you know.”
Jim Seida reported from Naples, Fla., and Corky Siemaszko reported from New York CIty