Posted on 08/14/2004 1:42:49 AM PDT by kattracks
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - The death toll from Hurricane Charley rose early Saturday, when a county official said there had a been "a number of fatalities" at a mobile home park and deputies were standing guard over stacks of bodies because the area was inaccessible to ambulances.Wayne Sallade, Charlotte County's director of emergency management, said early Saturday that there were "a number of fatalities" at the mobile home park, and that there were confirmed deaths in at least three other areas in the county.
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 and more were left homeless, said Sallade, who compared the devastation to 1992's Hurricane Andrew, blamed for 43 deaths, 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 Bush (news - web sites) 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 at Charlotte Harbor, pummeling the coast with winds reaching 145 mph and a surge of sea water of 13 to 15 feet.
Charley was forecast to spread sustained winds of about 40 mph to 60 mph across inland portions of eastern North Carolina and to dump 3 to 6 inches 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-foot-by 100-foot building.
Martin said he saw homes ripped apart at two trailer parks.
"There were four or five overturned semi trucks — 18-wheelers — 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, when the eye passed over barrier islands off Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, some 110 miles southeast of the Tampa Bay area.
Charley hit the mainland 30 minutes later, with storm surge flooding of 10 to 15 feet, the hurricane center said. Nearly 1 million people live within 30 miles 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, the center of the storm was in the Atlantic Ocean, about 190 miles south-southwest of Charleston, S.C., and moving north-northeast at 25 mph. Forecasters expected Charley to increase in speed. Maximum sustained winds were near 85 mph 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, N.C., 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.
___
Associated Press writers Mark Long in Fort Myers, Ken Thomas in Key West, Mitch Stacy and Brendan Farrington in Tampa, Vickie Chachere in Sarasota, Mike Branom and Mike Schneider in Orlando and Bruce Smith in Charleston, S.C., contributed to this report.
Joining with tressell in my prayers for those in harms way and for comfort and strength to those remaining and their families.
The building was completely destroyed. I'm wondering if it was part of the Ford-Edison estates in Ft. Myers.
The garage is a "thing" and can be replaced. Two of her friends in the area were killed - one in a traffic accident while evacuating and the other refused to evacuate and he was found inside his house. The irony is just inescapable - just a bad, horrific scene there.
That is a real tragedy, and a terrible irony. Just heard the death toll is 16 confirmed. Friday afternoon, a woman in the Orlando area stepped on a live wire, or a puddle with one nearby.
Prayer bump for everyone in West Florida...the hurricane victims, the EMT's, the police and sheriff's crews, the firemen, Coast Guard, power company workers, hospital personnel, funeral directors--everyone involved in the cleanup and recovery.
Yes, I'm even praying for the insurance company adjusters.
I look at it kind of like seat belts. We would be foolish not to buckle up but the government should not be able to come in and force adults to comply.
It would be interesting to know why most stayed. Did they not really know what damage could occur? You hear it but until you have been thru it, it doesn't always "sink in" . I'm thinking a lot were just afaid to leave their home. A loss of control. Maybe reassurances that if they leave they will not be stopped from coming back after the storm passed might help in the future. I don't know.
Some of us who live in Florida have given reasons on this thread why people (including us at times) do not always pack up. Quick re-cap for those who didn't read the thread.
1. Shelters do not allow animals, many people won't leave them.
2. It's expensive, dangerous, and very stressful to bug out especially when the vast majority of the time the hurricane does not hit your area.
3. Some people will not leave simply because if they do it's days before they are let back into their homes if a hurricane does hit. If they stay, they can possibly salvage what's left of their belongings.
4. At times there is no place to go. If a storm is projected to hit my area (Homestead), I can't go the keys, Miami is a target if I am. Those are my two largest areas. The storm can track either west or north once it hits. Who says which direction it will go? There is a good chance, as what happened to people that fled to Orlando, that you will flee right into the storm.
5. Because of upgrades in building requirements, hurricane shutters and windows, etc. Most homes in S. Florida and those who adopted Dade County building standards believe their home can withstand the force of a major hurricane.
Now, with this all said, anyone who decides to ride out a storm in a trailor has more faith than I'll ever have. Those who also live in areas that are right on the water and will face storm surges of 10+ft need to, and usually do, leave.
Thanks. I had not seen this. I wouldn't stay in a mobile home either but I've been thru #3 and it's a real problem. I had not thought about pets but this could be a real factor with the elderly. Things to think about, huh?
I'm sufficiently still scared and we didn't get much weather, just a spooky white sky in Tampa Bay.
You know FV that is what seems weird to me. Usually we would be overwhelmed with details and media everywhere. I remember with Andrew that coverage seemed 24/7. Is it a lot worse (hard to imagine) than we know or what's going on?
Apparently, they've searched through all the mobile home parks today.
And something most people will not think about unless faced with the weather service telling them a catagory 3+ hurricane is heading their way.
it looks like whomever FNC had on the night it hit (by phone) - saying they were at "hospital official" from charlotte county, and that there were 150 dead - was some kind of psycho caller. i haven't heard any other story about the death toll being that high.
Sorry to be so late responding to your question, Pikachu_Dad. I guess you're asking why I doubted that there were really deputies standing guard over stacks of bodies. It didn't sound plausible. For one thing, we don't just stack human bodies like cordwood in this country, because we respect the dead.
Exactly!!!
Unfortunately, sometimes the elderly are very stubborn about leaving their homes. My own grandmother refused to leave her apartment when the house caught fire. She had to be carried or escorted out by firemen.
What always amazes me is that rows and rows of trailers can be torn apart but there are always some that look as though they sustained little or no damage.
Where do you live? Its been cool here too.
We gathered together hundreds of lbs. of ice, and one of our members trucked it over.
Call your churches....they know how to get things moving.
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