Tragedy, joy and idiocy in tempest
A PREGNANT Miami woman was forced to deliver her baby all by herself early Sunday — coached over the phone in a three-way call with a doctor, paramedics and dispatcher — as Hurricane Irma raged outside.
The woman, who lives in the city’s Little Haiti neighborhood, called 911 at 3:23 a.m. to say she was in labor, but first responders weren’t able to get to her, The Miami Herald reported.
She called again at around 5:35 a.m. — and this time, she said, she couldn’t wait.
The dispatcher looped in a doctor and paramedics to coach her through the birth. After she delivered her daughter, they instructed her how to pass the placenta and cut and tie off the umbilical cord.
“Baby came out good, healthy,” said Miami Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Pete Gomez. “The woman was doing good, too.”
Rescuers reached the home later Sunday morning and took mother and child to the hospital. A BRAINLESS couple thought they could ride out Irma on a small sailboat Sunday — but instead forced cops to perform a daring rescue.
A person first spotted the vessel bobbing wildly in the choppy waters off Jensen Beach near Palm Beach and called cops.
Deputies John Howell and James Holloran and Detective Mathew Fritchie of the Martin County Sheriff ’s Office motored over to the sailboat and helped the unidentified couple aboard the larger police vessel. “Everyone is safe, and back on land,” the sheriff ’s office said. F LORIDIANS took shelter in hospitals, schools, community centers, places of worship and anywhere with a secure roof as Irma blew through.
At the First Baptist Church of Naples, 200 people were safe and dry Sunday — including 94-yearold Mary Della Ratta, who said she was there because her neighbors refused to take her in.
“I have nobody in the world,” said the childless widow.
“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen. I don’t know what I’ll find when I go home.”
Another house of worship, a mosque in Tampa, also was turned into a shelter, welcoming 500 evacuees of any faith, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
The mosque, which was only recently built, organized sleeping quarters split among three large conference rooms — one for men, one for women and another for families.
Mosque rules still applied — guests had to remove their shoes while inside.
Aida Mackic, an organizer at the mosque, said they’re confident they have food and supplies to serve three meals a day to all of their storm guests through Irma’s duration. T HE leader of an online group that had urged Floridians to shoot guns at Hurricane Irma — prompting police to warn against the bonehead notion — admitted on Sunday that it was a bad joke.
Ryon Edwards, who launched the 54,000-member Facebook group Shoot At Hurricane Irma, said people simply misunderstood his sense of humor.
“It was cool to see the response this got from facebook,” Edwards wrote on the site.
“On another note, I’ve learned that about 50 Percent of the world could not understand sarcasm to save their lives. Carry on.”
On Friday, Edwards’ group declared, “Let’s show Irma that we shoot first . . . Florida is a Stand Your Ground state, after all.”
The Pasco County Sheriff ’s Office later tweeted, “DO NOT shoot weapons @ #Irma. You won’t make it turn around & it will have very dangerous side effects.” F LORIDA’S land-dwelling residents aren’t the only ones who need saving. Manatees were stranded after the water in Sarasota Bay receded.
Photos (above) showed the sea cows waddling in the marshes of the aptly named Manatee County. The two gentle giants were loaded onto tarps and dragged to deeper water. A STORM was brewing — and so was the coffee.
Some Miami cops’ hurricane-survival kits came complete with strong Cuban coffee — a Magic City favorite — to fuel their all-nighter.
The Miami PD posted a photo of a coffee maker brewing cafecito atop a camp stove next to a cop car in a parking lot just hours before Irma wreaked havoc on South Florida.
“As our officers ride out the storm, some have brought the #Miami essentials to help them get through the night,” the department tweeted late Saturday.
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate — who created the so-called Waffle House Index to measure the impact of hurricanes based on the number of the chain’s restaurants that remain open during massive storms — suggested Miami should consider counting Cuban coffee joints instead.
“Cuban coffee stands — if those are closed, it is bad,” he said. T HEY’RE making Hurricane Irma just a little easier to stomach. One hundred of America’s top chefs — who were gathered in Atlanta for an annual food summit starting Monday — said they were ditching the event to serve a gourmet feast to refugees.
The cooks originally had planned to discuss such topics as “heritage grains” and “how to cut food waste” at the 2017 Chefs Collaborative Summit.