Initial damage estimate of $5B- $11B from Charley
(Pictures courtesy of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Miami Herald, and the Orlando Sentinel)
I am not certain that I can find the words to adequately describe just how truly fortunate I feel this morning. I've had several "there but for the grace of [insert name of your particular deity here] moments. It's not exactly a leap to realize that what has happened in SW Florida could just as easily have happened here.
Punta Gorda is just on the other side of the Florida Peninsula from Miami, perhaps a 3-4 hour drive away. If you look at a map, it doesn't take long to see that the difference between Hurricane Charley hitting Florida's southwest coast versus it's densely-populated southeast coast is the width of a metaphorical eyelash.
As of this morning, the official death toll, depending on who you happen to listen to, is either 13 or 15. By the time all is said and done, the death toll is expected to rise as emergency workers break into apartments and mobile homes in a search for the dead and/or injured. It seems that not everyone took the evacuation orders seriously, and some folks paid for their ignorance with their lives. Trying to wait out a Category 4 Hurricane is not something to be done lightly, or with any reasonable hope for survival.
There are a lot of folks in Southwest Florida who live in trailer parks. Yes, there have been improvements in the construction and design of trailers, but there is only so much one can do with the design of a mobile home. "Mobile" by it's very nature means light- relative to what you might expect in a conventional home, and light is NOT what you want when a storm packing 145 MPH winds bears directly down on you. There isn't much that will stand up to the kind of force, particularly a mobile home.
Once emergency and rescue workers finish picking up the pieces, the suspicion is that many more bodies will be found in the rubble of trailer parks. People in brick-and-mortar structures barely survived Charley in some cases. I can't imagine how anyone in the residential equivalent of tin-foil could have reasonably expected to come out alive- and yet some folks apparently did expect exactly that. Bad decision.
Recovery could cost billions and last months, perhaps even years
At least 13 people are dead and thousands more newly destitute. Hundreds are unaccounted for in the wreckage of mobile home park and isolated coastal communities. Police pried open doors and peered beneath collapsed walls and roofs, searching for the dead and injured. Entire communities that once housed hundreds of retirees are leveled.
Charley left behind a swath of wreckage that included century-old buildings in old rural Florida, modern suburbs and the upscale enclaves of the rich on exclusive islands like Captiva and Sanibel. Authorities face a huge task in comforting tens of thousands of people -- many of them 60 and older -- without electricity, water and shelter during the hottest time of the year.
As the extent of the destruction became clear Saturday, police, fire and ambulance crews from Palm Beach and Broward counties and around the state rushed toward the scene of the worst devastation in southwest Florida. Federal emergency officials organized relief efforts, and the Florida National Guard mobilized 6,500 troops.
They were greeted by a landscape of gutted buildings, flipped cars and splintered trees on a scale that hasn't been seen in Florida since Hurricane Andrew leveled Homestead in 1992. Even the most storm-savvy Floridians were unprepared for the scale of destruction from Charley, which surprised many as it jumped in size and swiveled off its predicted course at the last minute.
"Our worst fears have come true," said Gov. Jeb Bush, who surveyed the wreckage by helicopter. As he looked upon Punta Gorda, a small town of 15,000 in Charlotte County that was ground zero, the governor said, "It's just hard to describe seeing an entire community totally flattened."
It is difficult to find the words to adequately describe what might have happened here in Miami. Living as I am in a top-floor apartment in a three-story building, there is a very good chance that I would have a newly-installed sky light courtesy of Charley. The destruction and devastation probably wouldn't have been as bad as it was after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, because this area is much better prepared now. Still, there is only so much a city can do to prepare for 145 MPH winds.
The devastation and loss of life here in Miami would have been extensive, to say the least. It could easily have happened here, and there is really nowhere anyone could have gone in order to get out of the way.
Fury of Charley shocks Floridians
A day or two prior to Charley making landfall, the forecast was for Charley to head directly into Pinellas County and right over the top of Tampa Bay. Local officials there ordered the evacuation of almost a million citizens- a monstrous task by any estimation, but made doubly so by the threat of an approaching hurricane.
When Charley made an unexpected right turn into Charlotte County, many were caught unaware and unprepared. Hurricanes are comparatively rare in this part of Florida. The Miami area and the state's Atlantic Coast are, statistically speaking at least, much more likely to suffer the visit of a hurricane or tropical storm. Southwest Florida is much less sparsely populated and economically well-off than the Miami area. Hence, more people live in mobile homes than you'd find here in Miami. Put all of these factors together, and it was quite possibly the absolute worst place Charley could have paid a visit.
The death toll from Hurricane Charley rose to at least 13 Saturday as millions of Floridians in a 200-mile stretch from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic Ocean struggled to put their homes and lives back together.
At daybreak, many stunned survivors of Charley's wrath got their first look at the damage and began adjusting to the prospect of days without electricity, water, phones and television. Trees were felled; roofs were ripped off homes, schools and businesses; buildings crumbled; traffic lights were downed; and utility poles tumbled.
In Central Florida, an estimated 1.5 million people remained without power, and utility officials said it may be a week before everybody gets lights back on. Statewide, an estimated 2 million customers had no electricity.
We could easily be dealing with almost unprecedented death and destruction here in the Miami area. Instead, we have another beautiful, sunny South Florida day on top of us, and life couldn't be better. Just three hours to the west, it's a much different story.
Yes, we dodged a bullet, and it's difficult to adequately give voice to the relief I feel. The truly sad thing is that in this case, I know that my relief is another's despair, and there is plenty of despair to go around Florida right about now.
Sometimes, the distance between life and death can be measured in just a few short miles. I tried to play things cool when I would talk to Susan back in Seabrook, but when I see the pictures of the devastation, it's difficult not to realize that I should have been much more concerned than I was. Perhaps a few people in Charlotte County would still be alive if they had been similarly concerned.
