HURRICANE CHARLEY
Written: 13 AUGUST 2004

"Worst in recorded history of Southwest Florida", the radio described the hurricane Charley just before it hit shore. It had reached catergory 4 on the scale (from 1-5) and the winds were measured to 145 mph = 230 km/h = 65 m/s. According to the forecast it looked like it was going to make its landfall around Tampa, but it hit land alot more south than expected. Sometime around 2 and 3 pm it came past the coast outside Naples and hit land a little later up at Fort Myers.

We were out driving right before the hurricane came, together with a lot of curious Americans. Down by the beach there were a lot of surfers playing around in the waves. The police came and evacuated the beach while we were there, so we figured out it would be a good idea to get back home before the shit hit the fan. The hurricane went from a category 2 early today to a category 4 in a matter of hours, and the radio kept repeating that everybody should get inside or to any of the shelters that were open (this however did not stop them from sending commercials). The biggest danger seemed to be the so called "storm surge" which apparently means that the winds suck up the water from the sea and brings it in over land, which obviously results in severe floods.

But the shit never really hit the fan here in Naples. After the news pumping up the hurricane to be a huge massive monster which ended up hitting shore just some 30 miles north of here with a storm surge up to 18 feet, we did expect it to be alot worse than it got. The power went out fairly early and has not come back (9pm). Me and Kristian was out looking at the damage after the strongest winds had calmed down. Except from a whole lot of fallen trees, roadsigns and destroyed trafficlights, the damages was far from what we expected. We were far from the only ones driving around. The emergency teams were already out assessing the damage, cleaning up the streets. On the radio we heard the there was alot of damage up in Fort Myers, but because we don't have any power here we can't really got information about what's happening in the world around us.

There has obviously been alot of focus on Charley the last couple of days. Everybody has followed the developement as it was approaching the west coast of Florida. Media has covered the phenomenon well, and the emergency crews seemed well prepared. People in genereal have been calm, but most of them are used to the threat. I heard that 2 million people were evacuated from the coastline up towards Tampa. Here in Naples everybody east and west of US41 was subject to a mandatory evacuation.

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15aug: The power finally came back on after 48 hours. It was two hot nights without aircondition! Internet on the other hand is still down.
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16aug: I was out flying with Naples News today flying over the disaster areas. The devestation in some of the places is pretty bad. Rooftops blown off and trailerparks totally annihilated. There was a TFR (Flight Restriction) in effect to keep airplanes away from the rescue workers, so we had to stay above 2500 feet.
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A couple of links:

National Hurricane Center: All the information you need about Charley and all the other hurricanes. You can follow "Earl's" journey towards Florida. The forecasters expect it to hit the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, but you never know. Click here

Webcams: Cameras from some of the areas. :

Vanderbilt Beach (picture)
Vanderbilt Beach (film)
Fort Myers Beach (film)
5th Avenue (film)

Radar Image: Updated radar picture:
Key West Radar
Tampa Radar