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.
PLEASE--Does anyone have any information on North Port and Venice? My aunt and uncle have a mobile home in North Port (they evacuated) and my mom was supposed to move from Ohio into an apartment in Venice next week. They keep talking about Punta Gorda and Ft. Myers, which is close to these two areas. TIA!
I checked in around 2 am on the other thread but I'll check in again. :-) I'm on the east coast and just did a walk around the property. Many tree limbs down. Neighbor across the street has a hugh pine tree on top of his Chevy Tahoe. Getting ready to drive out to the Port (Canaveral) to check for damaged boats.
Yes, most of my family lives near Florence SC. I went up there less than a week after Hugo hit, and it made quite an impression. Florence, of course, was far enough off the coast that it was "supposed" to be safe, but there was significant damage there.
And, of course, Hugo was "supposed" to hit between Savannah and Hilton Head, but made a last minute turn (the 4 pm forecast showed it, IIRC, and the storm hit near midnight) and hit above Charleston instead.
If they wait until they know exactly where these things are going to hit, it's too late to get everyone out.
Local news reports that officials are bringing in several refrigerator trucks. Doesn't sound good.
Correct; Port Charlotte is only 50 miles from Tampa Bay.
Reviewin my software with all the NHC forecast tracks archived, anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together and with the vaguest understanding of typical track error should not have had the idea at any time that Port Charlotte was a "safe" place.
The deviation in track from the Tampa forecast tracks to the real forecast track looks like less than 10 degrees of arc.
I am not trying to blame anyone today. I am feeling sorrow for the losses involved in this. To do otherwise is coldhearted.
Venice was on the north, or weaker side of the storm. There's damage, but what I've seen (on various boards and such) from people in Venice is that it wasn't catastrophic.
Look, I was just trying to get these holier than thou, hindsight perfectionists to back off and show some decency today. Guess you missed that point.
But that's just what you did, isn't it? Weren't you the one saying they hadn't been told to evacuate?
No, I didn't. I am telling people on these threads blaming people for dying on stupidity, on their families not getting them out to back off.
I'm in Gainesville, in the middle of N. Central Florida and we are all OK in this area. My daughter lives in O-town(Orlando) and we have been watching WESH-TV from there, they have a good bit of damage but no reports of fatalities in that area. There are about 170,000 people there without power but hopefully they are getting things back together. The airports are closed but the theme parks are planning to be open today as usual. Some reports indicate pretty bad damage from Daytona area where they have interviewed Tampa residents who evacuated from their homes when they thought it would hit there. Looks like the Punta Gorda area is the worst though.
Prayers to anyone in that area or who has friends and relatives there.
List of Known Damage Caused by Hurricane Charley
The Associated Press
Here's a county-by-county list of damage as reported by officials and on-the-scene reporters.CHARLOTTE (Punta Gorda):
- Up to 50 people brought to Charlotte Regional Medical Center with injuries, according to hospital CEO. Injured being airlifted to area hospitals because Charlotte hospital sustained heavy damage.
- Portions of roof ripped off, windows broken at Deep Creek Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Charlotte, according to administrator. No injuries.
- Seven fire stations destroyed, according to state emergency management officials.
- Numerous trailer homes destroyed.
- At Charlotte County Airport, winds tore apart small planes and blew out the windows of a sheriff's deputy's car. Hangers were collapsed and roofs were torn off buildings. The only building that did not suffer major damage was the Airport Authority building.
- The roof of the county's emergency operations center in Punta Gorda also blew off.
COLLIER (Naples):
- Officials said a "good portion" of the county was without power and there was some flooding. No serious reports of damage.
DESOTO (Arcadia):
- Reports of roof blown off at Turner Agri-Civic Center, a hurricane shelter where 1,200 people had gathered. One known injury.
- Large sections of U.S. 17 are peppered with down utility poles; some parts of the road completely blocked.
GLADES COUNTY (Okeechobee):
- Rural county on west side of Lake Okeechobee reported sporadic downed power lines, minor roof damage, trees down. Approximately 35 percent of the county without power.
HARDEE (Zolfo Springs):
- Entire county without power.
- Destruction of numerous homes and commercial buildings.
HIGHLANDS (Sebring):
- Several power lines down north of Sebring.
- Tree fell through roof of apartment building in Sebring, injuries unknown
- Radio tower knocked down.
HILLSBOROUGH (Tampa):
- No damage reported, sporadic power loss in the eastern portion of the county.
LEE (Fort Myers):
- Lee County property appraiser estimates 250,000 buildings structures, homes and churches were damaged, causing just under $3 billion in damage, said Booch DeMarchi, spokesman for Lee County Emergency Management. The estimate was derived from a computer program, and appraisers would not survey the scene until Saturday morning.
- A man in his mid-20s was killed when a banyon tree fell on him outside his house in Fort Myers, said Ileana LiMarzi, spokeswoman for Lee County Sheriff's Office. The victim stepped outside to smoke a cigarette, others in the house heard a loud crack, then found him under the tree, she said.
- Downed power lines, numerous downed trees and some roofs torn off by high wind.
- A tornado touched down in southwest Cape Coral, damage still being assessed.
- Cape Coral city hall sustained enough damage that employees hunkered down there and had to relocate to other parts of the building.
- Cape Coral hospital sustained significant damage to parts of its roof, windows and doors. There were no injuries reported.
- At least 135,000 customers were without power.
- Eyewitness video showed the roof of a Fort Myers post office ripped off. Officials say no one was in the building.
- Sanibel Bridge is closed until noon Saturday.
- Curfew in Fort Myers and Cape Coral from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m.
MONROE COUNTY (Key West):
- The Islander Resort on Islamorada suffered minor roof damage, but it was open Friday.
- A sailboat separated from its mooring and its mast struck a main electrical transmission line, causing temporary power outages in parts of the lower Keys.
- Minor street flooding reported.
ORANGE (Orlando):
- 360,000 customers without power, according to the two power companies Progress Energy and Orlando Utilities Commission.
OSCEOLA (Kissimmee):
-Three fire stations damaged, including one which was missing its roof.
- Six people suffered minor injuries when the roof of their hotel blew off. There were other minor injuries around the county, but no major injures reported, officials said.
- County issued curfew from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m.
PINELLAS (Clearwater-St. Petersburg):
- No damage reported, no power loss.
POLK (Bartow-Lakeland):
- Amateur radio operator reports several mobile homes destroyed.
SARASOTA (Sarasota):
- Several trees down.
VOLUSIA (Deland-Daytona Beach)
- Most of the cities in Volusia County are about 80 percent without power, said Dave Byron, director of community information. No specific numbers were available.
- Trees down, trees on power lines.
To be fair, in that part of Florida, where do you escape to? It becomes a guessing game and you hope you guess right. People escaped from one place only instead to find themselves directly in the storm's path. It's folly to think the we will ever have hurricane forecasting down to an exact science.
Amazing! There was an evacuation order for mobile homes issued on Thursday afternoon and people chose to stay in them.
I live in Homestead and you're 100% correct. Mobile homes are ALWAYS under mandatory evacuation, even with the smallest storms. People don't always listen and stay.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/history/whtexas.htm
Hurricane Celia, 1970: Hurricane Celia was one of the most destructive storms to ever hit Texas, with damages estimated at $1.6 billion (in 1990 dollars). Celia became a hurricane on August 1 in the Gulf of Mexlco and intensified rapidly in 15 hours before it crossed the coast north of Corpus Christi. As it moved over land, spectacular damage occurred from a "cluster of high energy winds of short duration," (also called downbursts or microbursts).
The extreme winds raked across the residential and business areas in less than half an hour. It was estimated that winds reached as high as 160 mph for several seconds. During those disastrous seconds, incredible damage occurred at the airport and an adjacent mobile home park which was completely demolished. Fortunately, only 11 died in the Corpus Christi area due to the state of preparedness by its disaster prevention agencies.
Let me tell you something: there are people reading these threads that are looking for any SHRED of information about their friends and family.
You have done nothing on this thread but whine; take it somewhere else.
And we promise not to get on the Colorado snow threads and criticize you all.
Give it a rest.
It's going to be bad, really bad.
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