South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Home, studios flooded, famed Fort Lauderdale artist Jim Hammond contemplated quitting
As Jim Hammond lay on his soaked mattress at 3 a.m. Thursday, the power out, car alarms blaring outside, his dogs scratching at his shoulders, he decided it might not be a bad idea to quit his job and move back to Vermont.
The Fort Lauderdale-based artist and puppeteer known for leading Florida’s long-standing Day of the Dead parade had just lost more than half of his handcrafted papier-mâché puppets to the murky floodwater that crept up nearly 4 feet in his artist studio.
His home was submerged in that water. He had just walked through that water until it was shoulder-deep so that he could check on his 98-year-old neighbor, Scotty Packard, and his blind 85-year-old mother-in-law, Glenore Bradshaw, who he calls Sandy, in the tiny cottage-filled neighborhood of Edgewood, one of the hardest hit by the record-breaking deluge.
Over the course of a mere six hours Wednesday night, Fort Lauderdale saw nearly 26 inches of rain, an event that meteorologists can describe only as “unprecedented.” The flooding swept through the city, stranding people in the airport, on highways, and in their own homes, ruining their belongings. No one was prepared.
“My art was destroyed,” Hammond, 53, said.
Hours before his life seemingly disintegrated, Hammond was in North Miami with a new client to scope out a new puppet that he was planning to help work on. Forecasters had predicted rain, and it was drizzling on and off, but nothing unusual.
They headed back to the warehouse just west of Fort Lauderdale’s airport. Then, what should have taken one hour took two. By the time they got there, the rain had become torrential. His phone was blowing up with messages telling him “we’ve got to check on Scotty’ and “we’ve got to check on Sandy,” Hammond said.
Like so many other South Floridians, Hammond tried to get home Wednesday night on every major route, first Interstate 95, then U.S. 1, then U.S. 441, but he said everywhere he looked was “covered in cars.”
He gave up and went to grab some food for himself and his family at Field House, a nearby Irish pub. Thinking he would be staying for a little while, he ended up snagging the last meal, a chicken pot pie, before they closed the whole kitchen due to flooding and told him to take it to go.
But when Hammond finally neared Edgewood, he realized he couldn’t get back in because the roads were flooded. At that point, it still wasn’t an emergency, his mother-in-law and Packard had assured him. There was no flooding in their houses; the dogs were just a little scared.
Hammond diverted to the Parker Playhouse, where his wife, Shelly, vice president of operations at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, was helping stage a show with one of the singers from The Eagles.
He kept calling back and forth with his mother-in-law.
“There might be a little bit of water in the back,” she said. Hammond’s puppet studio is in the back.
Then, a half-hour later, the situation changed. “I don’t know where it’s coming in from,” she said.
Hammond managed to get access to a friend’s truck, but even in that, they reached a point where they could no longer go further. So they got out and walked the remaining five blocks, the water coming up to their shoulders.
When they finally made it through, the neighbors had managed to move Packard, whose house was flooding seriously, into Hammond’s mother-in-law’s house, which was also flooding, the water reaching 2 feet.
They called 911, but couldn’t get through because so many others were calling, particularly from Edgewater, where so many homes “were underwater,” Hammond said. Bradshaw pressed her life alert button. Eventually, rescue crews arrived.
Hammond’s art was not so lucky. At his studio in the back, the water had reached 4 feet. His puppet boxes were filled with water.
He rattled off the pieces that he knew so well, characters with lives of their own: the bride and groom, two of his earliest puppets; the giant cat and dog skeletons named “Paco” and “Taco;” the jester heads for Mardi Gras. The list went on.
“Those puppets are gone and they’ll be trashed,” Hammond said.
If the water doesn’t destroy the puppets, they’ll soon be covered in mold and mildew.
So, when he was finally in bed at 3 a.m., every dry pillow soaking through, he posted on Facebook, “tonight is the night when I may have to quit the arts for good.”
In the hours since, Hammond has gained some perspective, and walked back some of his statements. He was feeling “emo,” he said.
“I build this repertoire of puppets with so many great partners and creatives, some who aren’t here anymore, some who moved away,” he said. “And after walking in shoulder-deep water to take care of my mother-inlaw, there’s a part of me that just wanted to move back to Vermont where I grew up.”
But now, in his head, he goes back to a picture he took last night of his mother-in-law and Packard, sitting on the table at her house, surrounded by water, waiting for rescue.
“Even more than the puppets, that picture of my mother-in-law and 98-year-old neighbor Scotty is to me so heart-wrenching and really what it’s about,” Hammond said. “It’s going to be easier for someone who’s 50-something to rebuild their lives; it’s going to be a lot harder for someone who’s 85 or 98 to rebuild their lives.”
Hammond, Bradshaw and Packard have since been staying at the Parker Playhouse, where he said they’ve been able to play with the dogs and eat good food. They’ll spend the night in dressing rooms.
Hammond has decided he isn’t quitting the arts.
“The artist will always continue creating,” he said. “It’s just sometimes, oftentimes, the medium evolves and changes. Part of me wants to do much heartier sculptures now, that can withstand not only a rainstorm, but a hurricane. But I’m going to need some time. We’ve got to rebuild our houses. We’ve got to rebuild our lives.”