CHARLEY BECOMES A (CATEGORY 4 Now!!) HURRICANE (18 ft. storm surge)

NHC ^ | 08-13-2004 | Forecaster Lawrence

[AVNevis]

Reuters...Disney World is Closing

[TBall]

Probably not very, but then again I would have thought 4 was out of the question.

[hchutch]

I hope so...

[Unknown Freeper]

Marak, please stay safe. Thanks for the on the ground reporting (no pun intended.)

[Catspaw]

Charley should be reaching landfall in the next couple hours. It's a high CAT 4 now. Don't know if it'll have enough time to build to a CAT 5--but a CAT 4 is plenty nasty.

[Pyro7480]

That doesn't look good.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I have seen palm fronds impaled thru palm trees

[who knows what evil?]

The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore was advising people in the Ft. Myers area to flee to the EAST yesterday to avoid all the congestion to the north. With Charley's jaunt to the east of north the last few hours, that may have been very poor advice. NEVER try to out-think G-d...He may have different plans.

[Constitution Day]

Another one:

http://www.sunstream.com/beachcam.htm

[Conservababe]

I am still here. Although I have every sympathy with your plight right now, I am still laughing at your attitude that President Bush will lose votes because of this hurricane.

His brother Jeb will, in a timely manner, request help, unlike the governor of Fla at the time of Andrew.

[nwctwx]

Safe here. Of course, I'm in Connecticut. ;)

This is a bad one folks, stay safe down there.

[Jeff400000]

They put out a special update, saying they were upping in to cat 4. This was only 15 minutes after they increased it to a cat 3.

[RockinRight]

So...W sends some aid and wins FL for sure..?

[Dog]

Hey....

[ken5050]

I remember ewady a while back..talking about the danger of a Hurricane hitting Tampa..was that the storm-surge wouldbe funneled intot he bay..and this is after Betty soaked the area already..

[nwctwx]

It doesn't have time to reach Cat 5 in all likelihood. Explosive development SHOULD have been expected. The water temps in that region are near 90F.

[Lokibob]

I just looked at 3-4 web cams in area and couldn't get into any. Prob many people using them.

[Riley]

I bet there will be flooding in Old Town Alexandria.

If I'm able, I'll see about turning to at my favorite restaurant down there to help with the sandbags.

[Alberta's Child]

Bump for updates.