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Hurricane Irma: Cape Coral residents drive from Minnesota to donate supplies in Naples

Lisa Nagel, 52, right, and her friends distribute water and gas to Caribbean Park residents affected by Hurricane Irma Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. Nagel helped organize a group of 12 people to drive to Naples from Minnesota to provide relief from destruction caused by Hurricane Irma. "This is an opportunity to prove who we are," she said.

A caravan of trucks loaded with bottled water, ready-to-eat meals, fuel and propane tanks drove into Caribbean Park on Thursday.

They honked their horns up and down the streets of the mobile home community, signaling to residents that help was there.

They drove 1,800 miles from Minnesota to Naples to donate the supplies. It wasn't FEMA, The American Red Cross or the National Guard.

It was Lisa and David Nagel and their friends.

"Just good people," said Thomas Bartell, as he received a palette of water, and he said it came just in time.

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It was the first relief residents had seen since Hurricane Irma shredded car ports, tore off roofs and toppled huge trees in the 55 and older mobile home community off Wiggins Pass in North Naples.

Surrounding neighborhoods had power restored, Bartell said. But families in Caribbean Park were still in the dark Thursday.

Residents had been sleeping in cars at night to find relief from the heat. Food stored in freezers had spoiled. And for the few families with generators, fuel was running low.

"There's some old timers in here and this is all they've got," Bartell said. "And there's been no help."

"Except you guys," he said, motioning toward the crew of people from Cape Coral that donated supplies Thursday to the communities in Naples most affected by the storm. "God bless you."

Lisa Nagel, 52, comforts Donna Gomes, 57, outside Gomes' home in Landmark Naples, a mobile home community for seniors in North Naples Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. Nagel helped organize a group of 12 people to drive to Naples from Minnesota to provide relief from destruction caused by Hurricane Irma. "This is unbelievable," Gomes said of Nagel's efforts. "This is a miracle."

It was an effort started by Lisa and David Nagel. The couple was in Minnesota visiting family when Hurricane Irma first set her sights on Southwest Florida. David Nagel, a veteran of the Army National Guard and now a charter captain in Cape Coral, started making plans even before Irma made landfall. 

"He just went into overdrive," Lisa Nagel said about her husband. "We knew there were communities that were a lot worse off than we were. We had all this planning — we had to find somebody who could use some help."

In Minnesota, the Nagels bought a trailer and picked up donated supplies from across the state. They used social media to spread the word among friends and family up north and in Cape Coral, and it worked.

"We've had an outpouring of support," Lisa Nagel said. "Our friends and family in Minnesota — everybody wanted to help, and it's hard to do so from up there."

Tarrelle Johnson, 27, left, Josh Walker, 25, center, and Nick Dedominicis, 24, on the tree, work to remove a tree that fell on Donna Gomes' home in North Naples Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. The trio work for Elite Treehouse, a company based in Canton, Georgia, which was contracted to help clean up the Landmark Naples neighborhood. "We realized how much destruction was down here and wanted to help out," Walker said.

They packed on 25 cases of the military-style, ready-to-eat meals, 400 gallons of fuel, 60 cases of bottled water, about 30 tarps, seven propane tanks, diapers and other supplies and equipment. 

Then they drove the 1,800 miles to Southwest Florida, only stopping at their own home, which "smelled like death," to shower and change clothes.

The Nagels rounded up about a dozen of their friends and four other vehicles and arrived at Landmark Naples, a mobile home community off Old U.S. 41 in North Naples, where they handed out water and filled generators with fuel.

Donna Gomes broke into tears when the crew arrived at her mobile home with supplies. Her husband had been at a 7-Eleven for five hours Thursday morning waiting for fuel.

And then it showed up at her door step. 

"Thank you so much," she said, her hands to her mouth in exasperation. "This is like a miracle, honestly."

The volunteers then drove south to Caribbean Park, where Oscar Berkshire was beginning to run low on fuel for his generator. He invited his neighbors, many of them in their 80s and 90s, inside to cool off.

"People are helping each other out," he said. "These guys are like angels."

Lisa Nagel said she was disappointed to find that agencies hadn't been through the mobile home communities yet. But "neighbor helping neighbor," she said, is just as important.

"You can really tell the integrity of a community by how it treats the people who can't really help themselves," she said.