MICCO, Fla. — Lorraine Finch stares nervously at the blue tarpaulin covering her 85-year-old mother’s roof. It’s not raining today in southeastern Florida, but as winter sets in, nighttime temperatures are dropping into the low 20s, and the worn plastic does little to shield the home from the elements. It took less than a week in August for Tropical Storm Fay to take 36 lives and leave $180 million damage throughout the state, but recovery is moving far more slowly, frustrating both residents and the organizations trying to help.

Approximately 19,000 people in 27 counties have applied for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal programs, but many — like Finch — say the help they’ve gotten is taking far too long and is barely adequate to begin even the basics of recovery.

“The ceiling is leaking and ready to come down; the floors are warped and rotted; the carpeting is gone; the house has shifted off its foundation and isn’t even level; it’s a mess,” Finch says. “I’m on total disability, and my mother’s on Social Security. We just don’t have the money to fix this place.”

She says her mother, Helen Nauf, received $3,000 from FEMA towards the estimated $38,000 in damage, but additional help was denied because the manufactured home was deemed to have suffered the additional losses due to Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in 2004.

“You can’t even put a roof on the house for $3,000,” she says.

Nauf’s health problems exacerbate the need. She uses a breathing apparatus twice a day, but it’s not enough to ward off the mold spores. Respiratory issues have kept her in waiting rooms and hospitals over the past three months, and her daughter fears the consequences of continuing to live in the damaged home.

“I lost my dad two years ago,” Finch says. “She’s all I’ve got left.”

Disaster response organizations are frustrated by the slow progress as well. In the beginning, the problem was widespread flooding. Fay dumped as much as 27 inches of rain in some areas, and little could be done but watch and wait as the waters gradually receded. In some places, water still stands.

“Fay sat on top on top of us for five days straight,” says Keith Heinly, director of case management for Brevard Long Term Recovery Coalition in Brevard County, which took heavy impact. “We got rain after rain after rain.”

He says immediate response involved merely trying to deal with the massive amounts of water. The Salvation Army distributed 10,000 cleanup kits, while other groups gave out flood buckets and covered roofs in an effort to protect what remained, but it will be several more weeks before every roof has been adequately covered. If repair is delayed too long, the work that has been accomplished will have to be redone as tarps begin to disintegrate.

Executive director Liz Lee says faith-based disaster response organizations like the United Methodist Committee on Relief, United Church of Christ, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, and the American Baptist Church have been instrumental in that process, especially UMCOR.

“UMCOR has worked with us extensively, doing a wonderful job as usual, and has been a lead partner,” Ms. Lee says. “They had a team here last Thursday and Friday tarping, removing dry wall, and scrubbing mold off walls.”

Still, the coalition reports 778 active cases, with only 367 closed. Limited funding is snarling the process. Because Fay was considered “only a tropical storm,” it was overshadowed by Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, dividing resources.

“There just isn’t a lot of money for Fay,” says Marilyn Swanson, director of Disaster Recovery for the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church. “Some of these areas don’t typically flood. It was unanticipated.”

FEMA has distributed $26 million to residents, and an additional $3 million to local governments, but officials say that’s only a fraction of what will be needed statewide, and there’s no estimate as to how long it will take for distribution of further funding.

Meanwhile, Brevard Long Term Recovery Coalition is writing proposals, hoping to receive a $100,000 grant to cover administrative costs. Until then, little can be done to move from case management to recovery. Lee says, at that point, faith-based organizations will become critical.

“A major component of our funding is the faith-based groups, and donated materials make the dollars stretch even further,” she says. “I was very impressed with FEMA and the state response, but that doesn’t change the fact that these people don’t have the money to fix their roofs. It’s their only place to live, and somebody needs to help them. Every time we have a storm, you’re going to see more and more damage. “We, as a society, are going to have to come up with some answers for these people.”

Disaster response organizations like Church World Service, which is trying to raise money for a building to house disaster preparedness services and function as a community shelter in future disasters, stand ready to help with those answers once Florida is ready to begin the next step in recovery. Heinly says they’ve gotten “a real positive response” from Lutheran Disaster Response, United Church of Christ, Mennonite Disaster Services, and others. As the coalition waits for funding, organizers remain in constant contact with faith-based partners and others, holding daily teleconferences and regular meetings. Still, Florida is a long way from even beginning to recover from Fay’s wrath.

“There’s no way to change that,” Heinly says. “We have to wait until we get what we need in order to make it happen.”

Finch says she hopes it won’t be much longer before she begins to see progress being made. “If we get another freak storm, I don’t know that this house is going to stand.”

PENSACOLA, Fla. – No one could predict how the end would be, but they all agreed on one thing: She wouldn’t be alone. They came by the carload from places as far away as California and Washington, bringing wives, children, and grandchildren. She had been both shelter and home – forging a bond so formidable between them that not even death could rip it asunder. They needed to see her one more time.

Silently, the veterans of the USS Oriskany, a Korean War-era aircraft carrier, huddled together, collars turned up against the wind, hats drawn low to hide tears as they stood on the decks of some 400 charter and pleasure boats dotting the Gulf of Mexico in a loose semicircle Wednesday morning. This was her moment, her final battle, and they were determined to do it right. Thirty-seven minutes later, she was gone, a puff of grey in an azure sky – scuttled 24 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., in a 212-foot deep watery grave, where it will serve another function for a nation, as an artificial reef.

War has a way of creating bonds that are less ephemeral than those formed in a college dorm or in the cafeteria at work. They are forged in the crucible of conflict, and, in the case of a ship, by living khaki cheek by jowl with mates for months at a time at sea. Many of the crews’ ties on the Oriskany – the “Mighty O,” as it was called – were cast, too, during Vietnam, a war in which some servicemen to this day still feel the sting of being misunderstood or maligned by a nation.

“I was really looking forward to this,” says Bill Williams, who was part of the original crew present at the aircraft carrier’s 1950 commissioning in New York. He is referring to the ship’s sinking, but, more emotionally, to his reunion with shipmate Eddie Vargas. Mr. Vargas drove in from San Antonio Friday night with his wife, Orfa, to witness the Oriskany’s last voyage. “It seemed like it would never get here,” says Mr. Williams.

It is a bittersweet day for Williams, marking the end of an era and the revival of a friendship that never faded, even over 53 years and more than 700 miles. They had originally planned to meet in 2004, but hurricane Ivan intervened.

“On the ship, they teach you to depend on each other, to stick right by one another,” says Williams. “We didn’t question it, we just did it.”

With as many as 3,200 men aboard the 888-foot carrier at any given moment, teamwork wasn’t just a slogan: It was vital for the ship’s operation and the company’s safety. An aircraft carrier can be a dangerous place, and there’s no room for mistakes. “You’re just like a family,” says Mr. Vargas. “You become close-knit. Everybody has to do a certain job, and you respect each other.”

Tragedy has that uniting power as well, and the Oriskany is no stranger to it. Both Vargas and Williams lost a friend, ship photographer Thomas McGraw, who, along with another man, was killed while photographing the landing of a plane that accidentally dropped a bomb onto the flight deck, spraying shrapnel. A fire killed 44 men in 1966. “You know you’re in danger, but you don’t think about being scared until it’s over with,” says Williams. “You don’t have time to be fearful.”

John Labie, who served on the Oriskany in 1968 during Vietnam, agrees. “There’s just a bonding,” he says. “You might not even know who the other guy is, but you look after him.”

The ship itself has lived quite a life. More than 45,000 men served on the Oriskany – named after a Revolutionary War battle site – between 1950 and 1976. It was among the ships used by President John F. Kennedy as a show of force during the Cuban missile crisis. Later, 12 pilots who flew off the Oriskany, including US Sen. John McCain, became North Vietnamese prisoners of war. The ship has been used as a backdrop for at least two Hollywood movies.

Even though Mr. Labie went on to work aboard two other aircraft carriers, he still feels closest to his Oriskany shipmates. Wednesday, in fact, marked the first time he has participated in any military reunion since he left the service in 1970. He didn’t feel like he belonged at the local VFWs, which had more World War II veterans, and after active duty in the Vietnam War, he found it difficult to adjust to the antiwar movement sweeping across Florida State University, where he was attending college.

For one thing, at 25, he was older than most of the other incoming students. And then there was his hair. The neatly-trimmed cut immediately branded him as a participant in what he calls “a hated war.”

Eventually, he grew his hair long and tried to fit in, suppressing the feelings that came flooding back Wednesday as he watched the Oriskany slowly sink. “Usually I make jokes about everything, but this was kind of a tear-jerker,” says Labie.

Together the men watched the Oriskany succumb to 500 pounds of explosives, slowly listing portside and filling with water before finally throwing its hurricane bow heavenward and sinking below the surface. When it was over, many of the boats, gathered in a ring, sounded their horns in tribute. A moment of silence passed and then there was a bang from the deck of the Necessity. Labie had fired a blank from a miniature cannon.

Beside him, fellow Vietnam veteran Lloyd Quiter openly wept, pulling a boatswain’s pipe from his pocket and playing his tribute before saluting the ship one last time. All was quiet.

And then, suddenly, it was as if the entire flotilla breathed a collective sigh of relief. Gone were the fears that the beloved ship would be “made into razor blades,” veteran-speak for the Navy’s usual method of ship disposal: selling them for scrap metal. Some people hugged, others laughed and began chatting easily again as the charter boats swung away from the scene and tacked a hasty clip back to shore.

“When it finally went down, it was like we didn’t have to worry about it not being done anymore,” says Williams. “This way, it’s still doing service for mankind.”

The Oriskany will be opened to scuba divers as early as next week, part of a new program by the Navy to turn abandoned ships into artificial reefs and boost the local tourism. The Oriskany is the largest ship ever sunk for such service. “It was such a beautiful ship – brand-new when we got on it – and we kept it looking as new as we could,” says Vargas. “Now it’ll be there forever.”

Williams hopes his renewed friendship with Vargas endures, too. They’re planning to see each other again for the annual Oriskany reunion, held this year in Tunica, Miss., in September. “I really hated to leave him,” says Williams. “That’s the bad part about seeing someone like that – you know you’re going to have to separate again. But you know, 53 years is a lifetime for a lot of people, and here we are – still going.”