Potholes Impede Road to Hurricane Recovery : Andrew: Unscrupulous contractors, scam artists prey on victims of Florida devastation.

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Fla. —  Dorothy Franklin thought she was on the road to recovery from Hurricane Andrew. Instead, she said, she was detoured by an unscrupulous contractor who left her home a shambles.

Her immediate concern six months after Andrew rumbled through south Florida: keeping the mosquitoes and rain from coming in through her unfinished ceiling.

“I felt like he took total advantage of me,” said Franklin, who estimated that she was taken for about $20,000. “He was mannerly and everything that he said seemed professional. Instead, his workers told me he took the money and went out to the clubs.”

While volunteers rushed to the aid of the 250,000 suddenly homeless, many whose homes were barely left standing found themselves victimized by people looking to turn a fast buck.

Florida’s most costly disaster tapped into the worst instincts of some.

Many residents who thought they would be getting on with their lives still have plastic tarps for roofs after falling prey to unlicensed subcontractors and scam artists.

Franklin, a 45-year-old bus driver, said the contractor received money, but didn’t finish her fence. He put up her ceiling molding wet; it had to torn down and has yet to be replaced. Her closet doors, she said, he left out in the rain.

About half of the money lost will be covered by insurance, but others aren’t so lucky.

“I have never felt so humiliated and so dejected in all my life,” said Alex Allens, a 34-year-old brokerage company employee. “Here I am living through this crisis and I have someone rip me off. It’s a nightmare. I just want my life back.”

A roofer using a stolen invoice took $7,300 Allens had received from the Federal Emergency Management Administration and disappeared, she said.

“It’s just horror story after horror story,” Allens said of her neighborhood of Richmond Heights, an area south of Miami consisting of middle-class families, most of them black. “You just get used to hearing this type of thing. Before, it would shock you.”

Among the stories Allens has heard in the neighborhood is the tale of an elderly woman who gave $40,000 to a work crew to fix her home only to have them disappear.

“There has been some effort to get a handle on the fraud, but they haven’t been able to control it,” said William J. Davis, a consultant for the insurance industry’s Hurricane Insurance Information Center. “There is just a shortage of licensed contractors.”

Dade County building officials have received thousands of complaints about bad construction work since Andrew. In December, the building department logged 879 complaints, up from 69 a year ago.

“The phones ring off the hook, especially when it rains,” said Al Childress, chief enforcement officer for contractors for Dade County.

In response, the Metro Dade recently hired five enforcement officers, and plans call for 29 more officers, inspectors and clerks, who will be brought on board to patrol neighborhoods, conduct sting operations and investigate complaints.

In January, a federal grand jury and local authorities launched an investigation into scores of people suspected of collecting checks under a multimillion-dollar jobs program created after the Aug. 24 storm. Workers did little or no work while collecting as much as $6,000 in pay, authorities say.

Hurricane victims themselves also have gotten into the act, inflating damages through exaggerated claims. Industry leaders say they are practically helpless at this point to assess the fraud.

“The typical problem is with those whose roofs were little damaged or damaged before the storm, but said all of it was ruined by Andrew,” Davis said. People also took advantage by “installing in their house much better quality material, such as getting a fancier type of floor,” he said.