Posted on 08/16/2004 1:12:01 PM PDT by Semper911
CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Two refrigerated trucks sat in the wind-torn parking lot of the Best Western Water Front Inn off the tranquil waters of Charlotte Harbor, serving as a temporary morgue for the casualties of Hurricane Charley.
Four people may have been killed by the storm in Charlotte County, some reports indicate, and Charley led to at least 16 deaths statewide during its forceful push Friday through Florida.
With ongoing search and rescue efforts stretching into the evening hours Sunday, Charlotte County emergency officials declined to confirm the county's fatalities.
"We've never dealt with a mass casualty event, and we're not yet prepared to (verify) or acknowledge the number of fatalities," said Wayne Sallade, director of Charlotte County's emergency management. "Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number.
"If the toll is what I believe I'm hearing in a storm of the magnitude we went through in this county, it's a miracle," Sallade said. "It's a miracle."
While hundreds of people have been treated for injuries suffered during the hurricane, the number of missing people remains unknown, officials said.
Because Charlotte County is a seasonal community with an average of about 110,000 residents during the summer and about 200,000 residents during the spring, Sallade said many seasonal residents may have been out of town when Charley hit on Friday, making it hard to determine the number of missing people.
The path Charley carved through historic Punta Gorda remained clear two days after the storm. Steel traffic posts bent like rubber straws, trees snapped in half like pencils, and dangerous power lines lay strewn along the streets. Along the city's main thoroughfares Sunday, sirens still wailed and helicopters soared overhead.
Business owner Jerry Presseller said the hurricane winds pushed a 300-pound oven from outside his delicatessen onto a driveway more than 20 feet away. One of the buildings he owned for more than a decade shuddered, then an eerie calm came.
"We went outside," he said, "but we knew it was the eye of the hurricane, so we hurried back inside."
Presseller remained in awe of the devastation.
"It's like a war zone," he said. "We're pretty lucky."
Law enforcement officials and members of the National Guard are enforcing a mandatory curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Charlotte County Sheriff's Office Lt. Donna Ruguska said.
Two people were arrested and booked at the Sarasota County jail Saturday after authorities say they violated curfew, Ruguska said.
About 400 volunteers and employees from the American Red Cross set up five relief points and manned eight mobile units delivering food and basic essentials to area residents Sunday. The agency plans on serving a total of about 9,000 meals today, according to J.B. Hunt of the American Red Cross.
President Bush visited the region Sunday morning, along with area congressmen Mark Foley and Porter Goss. The president strolled through Punta Gorda and spoke with residents.
"I think he was as shocked as all the rest of us by what he saw," Sallade said.
Work crews from Center Point Energy in Houston formed a convoy to Charlotte County on Interstate 75. The group was one of the hundreds that poured into the region Sunday amid an overwhelming influx of support.
Emergency crews and law enforcement officials also continued to arrive in Charlotte County.
About 100 Manatee County fire, rescue and emergency officials arrived in Charlotte County hours after the storm passed, according to Manatee County emergency operations and public safety officials.
According to Laurie Feagans, chief of the Manatee County Emergency Operations Center, Manatee County emergency teams came to Charlotte on Saturday and are stationed around the area.
"It was devastation," Feagans said, recalling her first impression of Charlotte County in the aftermath of Charley. "I just felt really bad for them."
At a command center in the Winn Dixie parking lot on Kings Highway, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue workers fraternized with Sarasota County emergency services employees. A Dixie County mobile command center sat alongside Palm Beach County sheriff's vehicles.
U.S. Immigration officers waved traffic through intersections on U.S. 41.
"Almost a quarter of our agency is here," said Joseph Schwartz, a lieutenant with the state fire marshal's office in Fort Lauderdale. "We've done Georges, Andrew - it's what we do."
Schwartz said he helped open gas stations to service the support vehicles and helped cover eight square miles of grid searches.
County workers are expected to return to work today. Because many schools suffered significant damage during the storm, Charlotte County schools superintendent Dr. David Gayler said schools will remain closed until Aug. 27.
Manatee County Emergency Medical Services Capt. Greg Thomas stressed the significance of mutual aid in a time of disaster.
"This is a perfect time to show the support among the counties," he said. "As the hurricane moved up the coast, it could have struck Manatee County just as easily as it did here, and we would have needed the same type of assistance we're providing them."
I think you are putting more fath in baseless rumors and scurrilous reporting than in what is being presented as truth.
The stacks of bodies never existed except in the erroronous press reports.
They never did release the actual numbers of people killed by Hugo.
Sept. 10–22, Caribbean Sea, S.C., and N.C.: “Hugo” claimed 86 lives (57 U.S. mainland).
There were many many more killed in that one than ever reported.
Do you have a list of their names? If not, how do you know that there were more than 57 people killed?
No; I fear local (translate Dim) officials are sitting on it and Bush will take the heat.
I’m really curious about the reasoning here.
Why do you think Bush would take “heat” if local Democratic officials took a few extra days before releasing the death toll numbers.
Most people need to know whether or not their loved ones made it through. The final count numbers are more or less a curiousity and a way of historically ranking the toll of the storm.
What political advantage do you see the evil local Democratic officials gaining when they come out and say the number is seventy-five or twenty-five, or a hundred and five?
I really don’t understand the underpinnings of this burgeoning conspiracy theory. It seems very DUish to me.
they cant count to fourteen? do they have the Dewey Decimal System on the toe tags?
How hard is it to count bodies in a truck??
It would be better now to hear that they have located X number of bodies because X will grow. This is a REASON TO REPORT THE NUMBERS NOW in case the numbers get unreasonably high and they have to account for withholding devastating information.
The authorities may be Democrats holding out to register the dead to vote and are deciding how many they need. This would best explain the mishandling of the situation.
Because he would not have stopped those Democratic officials illegally registering deceased voters.
Good Grief .........
"Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number..."
A classic example of the old classroom trick where the teacher whispers something in the ear of one student and that student whispers it to the kid next to them, and when it goes through all the kids and back to the teacher it doesn't resemble what was originally said at all.
Any number "60" rumor you hear is based on the brain damaged EOD director of Charlotte County having blabbed to the media he'd "ordered 60 body bags" though he really had no idea how many people were killed. The media, of course, since it contained the words "body bags", went orgasmic and spread it around.
However, over time on various boards including here and some weather boards, the "body bags" comment has turned into 60 killed, or 60+ killed, or 60+ killed in just one trailer park, or whatever.
I doubt the number killed goes a LOT higher than what it is now...as for a variety of reasons the surge appears not to have been as bad as the normal surge for a Cat 4 storm (fast storm movement, narrow area of top winds, and very short time, only a few hours, above cat 2.)
And surge is the only thing really capable of causing mass casualties in a hurricane. It's what kills 500,000+ people in Bangladesh, and it's what killed the 6,000+ in Galveston TX in 1900.
Winds are surprisingly easy to survive, even if the apparent damage to dwellings is catastrophic; witness the (relatively) low death toll of Andrew.
The only way the death toll will get a lot higher if the rumors that 200+ people stayed on the barrier islands is true.
We are receiving aid from quite a few southern states. However I have heard no news of help coming from other countries. I wonder how much aid has been sent to Cuba from our so called friends.
Dear God, can public officials in America not be honest about anything anymore?
Can these people not count past twenty or something?
As someone who lives at ground zero, I can tell you that the official local body count is 4 (Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte).
The claims of higher body counts were made by a shocked senior citizen immediately after the storm, who saw all the mobile homes that had been damaged in just one park.
This claim has been repeated by the national newscasters without comment about whether it reflected the truth.
The search and rescue teams have been going door to door in the 31 mobile home parks in Charlotte county - using dogs trained to sniff humans (live or dead). They are looking for anyone trapped.
Today, they did find two people - both alive.
So far, only 4 bodies found, and about 90% of the homes checked.
Most people did evacuate the mobile home parks. Most of the mobile homes were empty as the snow birds were still up north this time of the year.
The morgue trucks were brought in as a precaution. Good planning - just in case.
The media news hounds are looking for something sensational to report - as if the destruction were not enough.
But there is good news. Water is running (although there is a boil order). Some phone lines have been restored, in fact long distance calls can be made and received. But no local calls or cell phones yet.
Electricity is being restored - slowly.
Some local stores (Home Depot, Sams Club) and others are in business. Two hospitials now have power. Food shipments are coming in.
No looting reported. Their is martial law, and a 9pm to 7am curfew.
It is hot, humid, and plenty of mosquitos. People without roofs and air conditioning and TV and radio and phones.
But not stacks of bodies being hidden somewhere . . .
Hurricane Charley Death Toll in Florida Hits 17
27 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
Jim Loney
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (Reuters) - Relief supplies poured rapidly into southwest Florida after Hurricane Charley's devastating rampage but some of the thousands of newly homeless seethed with frustration on Monday as they faced rebuilding their lives.
The death toll for the fiercest storm to hit Florida in 12 years climbed to 17, Florida emergency officials said, but it looked like the final total would not be as high as originally feared…
Well that was exactly my point. I am not goulishly salivating in anticipation of a higher death count, as some on this thread have implied.
I have been following your posts since the storm, and I very much appreciate that you have taken the time to give us your reports.
Best of luck to you and your neighbors.
The only thing that kept this storm from tearing into Mississippi was a freak northern unlike any in history.
The next one could be us.
It is important for people to know how deadly these storms are.
Many have not experienced the violence.
They need to get with the picture and tell what they DO know.
What the hell are you talking about?
The whole the point of my post was that you will know. In fact, those of us who have taken the time to read some articles already know. The number of dead currently stands at 17. They will likely find a few more corpses in the coming days. And some people may be reported missing, never to be found.
I really don't know what you're trying to say. Do you think the Bush brothers are conspiring to hide the hundreds really killed in secret mass graves?
Pretty easy, but those bodies are family members of people who deserve to be notified first.
If you don't see the importance in that, then so be it.
Has anyone else found this curious?
No. Two refrigerator trucks doesn't mean 18 wheelers. I also imagine they are arrainged and catalogued inside on some type of shelve system. My guess being these are dedicated mortuary trucks, not a rented Ryder. I seriously doubt visions of bodies packed like cordwood are accurate. There is also no reason to suspect the trucks are full.
There's a genuine issue of emergency agency credibility as well. Until a search has been completed of the region, authorities should refrain from posting preliminary numbers.
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