Hurricane Charley devastates Florida

[Dreamer128]

Hurricane Charley in Florida has killed seven people, and the death toll continues to rise.

The eye of the worst hurricane to hit Florida in a dozen years passed directly over Punta Gorda, a town of 15,000 which took a devastating hit Friday.

Hundreds of people were missing in Charlotte and thousands were left homeless, Sallade said. He compared the devastation with 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which the National Hurricane Center directly blamed for the deaths of 26 people, most in South Florida.

"It's Andrew all over again," he said. "We believe there's significant loss of life."
Sallade did not have an estimate on a specific number of fatalities. He said it may take days to get a final toll.

Extensive damage was also reported on exclusive Captiva Island, a narrow strip of sand west of Fort Myers.

President George W. Bush declared a major disaster area in Florida, making federal money available to Charlotte, Lee, Manatee and Sarasota counties. One million customers were reported without power statewide, including all of Hardee County and Punta Gorda.

The Category 4 storm was stronger than expected when the eye reached the mainland Friday afternoon at Charlotte Harbor, pummeling the coast with winds reaching 145 mph (233 kph) and a surge of sea water up to 15 feet (4.5 meters).

Charley was forecast to spread sustained winds of about 40 mph to 60 mph (65 kph to (95 kph) across inland portions of eastern North Carolina and to dump 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of rain beginning Saturday morning, forecasters said.

Gov. Mike Easley declared a state of emergency.
In South Carolina, roads clogged Friday night as tourists and residents of the state's Grand Strand - beaches and high-dollar homes and hotels - heeded a mandatory evacuation order.

Gov. Mark Sanford had urged voluntary evacuation earlier Friday.

At Charlotte Regional Medical Center in Punta Gorda, 40 people sought treatment for storm injuries. The hospital was so badly damaged that patients were transferred to other hospitals.
"We can't keep patients here," CEO Josh Putter said. "Every roof is damaged, lots of water damage, half our windows are blown out."

Among those seeking treatment was Marty Rietveld, showered with broken glass when the sliding glass door at his home was smashed by a neighbor's roof that blew off. Rietveld broke his leg, and his future son-in-law suffered a punctured leg artery.

"We are moving," said Rietveld's daughter, Stephanie Rioux. "We are going out of state."
At least 20 patients with storm injuries were reported at a hospital in Fort Myers.

A crash on Interstate 75 in Sarasota County killed one person, and a wind gust caused a truck to collide with a car in Orange County, killing a young girl. A man who stepped outside his house to smoke a cigarette died when a banyan tree fell on him in Fort Myers, authorities said.

At the Charlotte County Airport, wind tore apart small planes, and one flew down the runway as if it were taking off. The storm spun a parked pickup truck 180 degrees, blew the windows out of a sheriff's deputy's car and ripped the roof off an 80-by-100-foot (25- by-30-meter) building.

Martin said he saw homes ripped apart at two trailer parks.

"There were four or five overturned semi trucks on the side of the road," he said.

In Desoto County outside Arcadia, several dead cows, wrapped in barbed wire, littered the roadside.

The hurricane rapidly gained strength in the Gulf of Mexico after crossing Cuba and swinging around the Florida Keys as a more moderate Category 2 storm Friday morning. An estimated 1.4 million people evacuated in anticipation of the strongest hurricane to strike Florida since Andrew in 1992.

Charley reached landfall at 3:45 p.m. EDT (1945GMT), when the eye passed over barrier islands off Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, some 110 miles southeast (177 kilometers) of the Tampa Bay area.

Charley hit the mainland 30 minutes later, with storm surge flooding of up to 15 feet (4.5 meters), the hurricane center said. Nearly 1 million people live within 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the landfall.

The state put 5,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen on alert to help deal with the storm, but only 1,300 had been deployed by Friday night, a state emergency management spokeswoman said.

At a nursing center in Port Charlotte, Charley broke windows and ripped off portions of the roof, but none of the more than 100 residents or staff was injured, administrator Joyce Cuffe said.

"The doors were being sucked open," Cuffe said. "A lot of us were holding the doors, trying to keep them shut, using ropes, anything we could to hold the doors shut. There was such a vacuum, our ears and head were hurting."

At 2 a.m. EDT (0600GMT), the center of the storm was in the Atlantic Ocean, about 190 miles (300 kilometers) south-southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and moving north-northeast at 25 mph (40 kph). Forecasters expected Charley to increase in speed. Maximum sustained winds were near 85 mph (137 kph) with higher gusts.

The center was expected to approach the South Carolina coast Saturday morning. A hurricane warning remained in effect from Cocoa Beach, northward to Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, and a tropical storm warning was in effect on the North Carolina and Virginia Coasts north of Oregon Inlet to Chincoteague, including the lower Chesapeake Bay south of Smith Point.

Spared the worst of the storm was the Tampa Bay area, where about a million people had been told to leave their homes. Some drove east, only to find themselves in the path of the Charley.

"I feel like the biggest fool," said Robert Angel of Tarpon Springs, who sought safety in a motel. "I spent hundreds of dollars to be in the center of a hurricane. Our home is safe, but now I'm in danger."

The fourth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Danielle, formed Friday but posed no immediate concern to land. The fifth may form as early as Saturday and threaten islands in the southeastern Caribbean Sea.

(Source: Jerusalem Post)

[Magness]

Originally posted by Dreamer128: A man who stepped outside his house to smoke a cigarette died when a banyan tree fell on him in Fort Myers, authorities said.

Jeeez. :roll:

Is this worthy of a Darwin Award? Stepping *out* of your home and *into* a hurricane to smoke a cigarette? The guy just couldn't do without for one day? Or he couldn't bring himself to at the very least smoke inside?

*sigh*

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Makes me sad... I know people in Fort Meyers, and Sanibel/Captiva is the closest place to paradise we have in America. I'm glad I haven't seen the news... I have an image of perfection in my mind, and I don't think I want to lose that.