More on Hurricane Andrew Cover-up
Letters courtesy of K.T. Frankovich
http://www.kt.cjb.net


Note: These are the original letters and have not been edited.

Subj: Hello
Date: 7/30/02 1:52:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: theghost@realmcity.com (Bob Boyce)
Reply-to: theghost@realmcity.com
To: Kfrnkovich@aol.com

I just read a bit about hurricane Andrew on the www.nexusmagazine.com web site. It sure brought back memories. I am a ham radio operator and I was a red cross volunteer in West Palm Beach at the time. My post during the expected hurricane arrival was a fire station in a western part of the county. When we heard news that the hurricane had hit further south, I contacted our local EOC and requested permission to drive down to South Dade to assist. I was told by the head of our EOC that the conditions down south were not that serious, they needed no volunteers, and if I went I would be arrested. This contradicted what I had been hearing from surviving ham radio operators so I loaded up with supplies, hooked my trailer with generator and fuel in tow, put my red cross ID on the dash, and drove on down to what was left of Homestead. I reported in to the red cross operation and since I had brought extra communications equipment they had me report to the city hall where I set up radio equipment so they could communicate. My generator was quickly confiscated by the commander of the troops manning the national guard building. They used it to run lights until they could manage to get utility power restored to the building. We had the use of the main building of the national guard to use as storage and there were trucks coming in from the north that were carrying food and water. Before long the building was getting filled and they came over and asked the man that appeared to be in charge (I think he was city manager) at the city hall what could they do with all of the incoming food and water. I advised him that we could have red cross volunteers drive out into the community to deliver food and water to the people. He told me to see him in the morning and he would organize it. For days we went out into all the areas we could reach by car or truck, distributing food, water, baby formula, and other supplies. In that time I saw many devastated mobile home parks, homes, and apartment buildings. In the wreckage, mostly the mobile home parks, the bodies and body parts were all over and the stench was getting bad. We were ordered to stop our food deliveries by the military after a few days because they claimed it was a health hazard for us to go out into these areas and they wanted hunger to force the survivors to come out of the areas instead of remaining in their homes. The military set up kitchens at major intersections and prepared meals for anyone lucky enough to be near one or have transportation. There was no discussion of any rescue efforts that I was aware of and the red cross volunteer in the hospital reported that the only wounded coming in were people that came to the hospital on their own. I remained and helped with a temporary tower and maintained a site running by generator for 2 way communications and mobile telephone service. I had to even patch phone lines along the streets to try to keep the phone circuits to the tower working as long as possible until new lines and towers could be set up. I had to endure the martial law and I had guns pointed at me many times at the many military road blocks but I was never arrested as the head of the Palm Beach County EOC had claimed. In fact, everyone I met at the local level in homestead, with the exception of the military, was glad for the help we provided. Red cross HQ's on the other hand were lost in a mass of confusion. We had virtually no support from them. It was mostly individual volunteers like me that ignored the warnings and turned up to help out that ended up doing most of the ground work and there were too few of us to go around. I have absolutely no doubts about the coverups. I saw the bodies and when I heard the "official" death reports I knew right then and there something was up. Well I've rambled on long enough. I have tried to put a lot of what I saw behind me. It was like a war zone I doubt I will ever forget.

Bob Boyce



SECOND EMAIL
Subj: Hello again
Date: 7/30/02 8:55:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: theghost@realmcity.com (Bob Boyce) Reply-to: theghost@realmcity.com
To: KFrnkovich@aol.com

Hello k.t.

I have no objection to you forwarding the email. This was the first I have seen or read anything from an Andrew survivor. A friend that found the Nexus Magazine web site told me about it and sent me the url last night. While reading your ordeal the painful memories came flooding back and I just felt I had to share with you what I had experienced. Even after all these years I still break down when I recall the horror, so I doubt I would be much good on a voice call. With all the death and destruction, I guess it never dawned on me that there were injured still in the wreckage. I guess I had wrongfully assumed that the emergency services had already attended to the wounded and delivered them to hospitals by the time I had arrived the following evening. Looking back, I should have taken a more pro-active position but I guess I was just stunned and overwhelmed by it all like most of the other civilians. I had never seen such destruction before and nothing in my training as a red cross communicator had prepared me for that. My training was just to set up radio equipment so that the rest of the emergency services could communicate after the loss of their normal communications infrastructure. I am not in very good health nowadays. I was struck by lightning in 1995 which caused damage to my short-term and mid-term memory and seems to have caused a rapid onset and progression of arthritis. I moved up here to western NC in 1997 hoping to escape the oppressive heat and humidity of south FL. I'm right by the state line of TN and not far from GA and our mail comes from a post office in TN so even though I'm in NC and have a NC telephone number, my mailing address is a TN address. I am now only 42 and on medicaid. I have been getting treated for arthritis and degenerative tissue in my back and joints. I was also diagnosed with congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema and I am currently on prescribed oxygen full time. I do not expect to live too much longer but I will try to keep in touch for as long as I can. My phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Sorry it took so long to write this, I drift off to sleep sometimes in the middle of writing emails or chatting in instant messages. My AOL Instant Message account name is my ham radio callsign "kb4iqm".

Bob Boyce


 


Hieronimus & Co., Inc., P.O. Box 648, Owings Mills, MD 21117 USA
Voice Mail: (410) 356-4852 Fax: (410) 356-6229