By ANITA KUMAR and MICHAEL SANDLER
Published August 14, 2004
Pinellas County residents began Friday preparing for the brunt of Hurricane Charley, but by nightfall they were headed home after officials lifted the largest evacuation order in county history.
Bridges reopened. A county curfew was rescinded. Power was restored to beach towns. And the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport is expected to open this morning.
"It's like getting ready for a prize fight," said John Leahy, fire chief for Pinellas Suncoast Fire and Rescue in Indian Rocks Beach. "You work for months and months and months to get ready for it, then on the night of the fight you knock him out in one punch. You kind of ask yourself "Was it worth it?' "
But officials said repeatedly Friday they hope Pinellas residents will realize they made the right choice to evacuate because Charley had been expected to hit head-on.
"No one cried wolf," Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said. "I think when people look at the devastation this storm wreaks south of us, I think they will see they made the right choice. Had that storm come ashore in the Tampa Bay area, it would have been a catastrophe."
For Pinellas, the turning point came shortly before 2 p.m. when Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, made an unscheduled call to the Emergency Operations Center in the basement of the courthouse annex in Clearwater.
"We put a microphone on the speaker phone," County Administrator Steve Spratt said. "We just knew it was significant news."
Mayfield said Charley had intensified from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 4 with winds surpassing 140 mph.
The room grew silent. Many there had been working straight through the night.
"I think you could see the tension on people," Spratt said. "It was strengthening."
But then Mayfield said the hurricane was shifting away from Pinellas and toward Port Charlotte. The tension shifted to sympathy.
"I was relieved and kind of sad at the same time," said Gary Vickers, director of Pinellas County Emergency Management. "It now looked like Pinellas wasn't going to suffer, but somebody would."
Shortly after 6 p.m., Sheriff Everett Rice signed an order opening barrier island bridges and roads. Minutes later, Spratt went on television and said the evacuation was over, as was the curfew that had been ordered hours earlier.
"I think all of us are relieved," Spratt said. "We cut short our stress and extra work, and avoided damage to a beautiful community."
Pinellas ordered a mandatory evacuation for 380,000 people Thursday. Not only had people left by Friday morning, but most evacuated early to avoid a last-minute crush.
"People won't look at this as a false alarm," said Chris Bengivengo, Division Chief for Dunedin Fire Rescue. "People will look at this as, "We got lucky.' All you got to do is look at what's happening (in Fort Myers) and you'll see, that would have been us had that storm not hooked right."
In Oldsmar, where the entire city's population was told to evacuate, officials went door to door and left fliers if no one was home. In Largo, police and firefighters visited each mobile home park urging evacuations.
Edward Reynolds, 75, waited out the storm in the double-wide trailer in Crystal Bay park, just south of Crystal Beach, where he has lived since 1989. But he had a bag packed just in case he needed to leave.
The postal worker had accepted that his meticulously decorated mobile home would likely be destroyed.
"I laid around last night," he said. "I think I was having a going-away party for my favorite home."
The Pinellas beaches became eerily quiet by Friday midday. By noon it was hard to find a car cruising Gulf Boulevard or a tourist sauntering the sidewalk, even though the sun was shining.
Most residents left their homes, with masking tape or plywood covering the windows and patio furniture tucked safely inside. Hours before Charley was set to arrive, beach mobile home parks were emptied but for a few last-minute evacuees and the steely few determined to brave out the storm on the waterfront.
"I was in Vietnam," said John Watters, 57, explaining why he was among the few to stay put on Treasure Island without evacuating. "If I didn't get killed there, I figured I wouldn't get killed here."
In St. Petersburg, front-end loaders were positioned at fire stations throughout the city, ready to clear the streets for emergency vehicles. Damage assessment teams stood ready to seek out the worst of the storm's aftermath.
In Shore Acres, an area traditionally prone to flooding, there were few cars in driveways and many people had barricaded their homes with sandbags.
"Look at that," Mayor Rick Baker said as he watched TV at a fire station showing Charley battering yachts in a marina outside Port Charlotte. "Isn't that amazing? That could have been us."
It has been a two-day roller coaster ride for Pinellas officials.
They initially underestimated the magnitude of the storm earlier this week. But Thursday, they switched gears and prepared for what was predicted to be one of the worst disasters in Pinellas County in decades.
Police increased staff Friday. Clearwater had more than 100 officers on duty, one of the highest deployments in city history. The Sheriff's Office had nearly 300 deputies on the street.
Worries about flooding in low-lying areas of the jail led the Sheriff's Office to release about 500 inmates - nearly a sixth of the jail population of 3,100.
Spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said the inmates were nonviolent offenders with less than 30 days left on county court sentences.
Inmates whose sentences expire by Aug. 20 don't have to come back after the hurricane to serve the remainder of their time. Those with sentences ending between Aug. 21 and Sept. 10 must return to the jail after the storm, Pasha said.
Inmates were given the choice of staying at the jail if they had no home to return to or if they didn't have anyone to pick them up.
"Of course, they all left," Pasha said, noting not one person opted to stay.
By Friday evening, when the county had received a little more than a light drizzle, the mood switched again. Some were relieved; others were bitter.
"I feel cheated," said Will Hayes, 50, manager of Cuso's Pub and Beach Cantina in Indian Rocks Beach. "I wanted to be standing in the parking lot facing (the beach), staring it in the face, saying "Bring it on!' "
Times staff writers Richard Danielson, Matt Hanson, Carrie Johnson, Nora Koch, Curtis Krueger, Jade Jackson Lloyd, William R. Levesque, Chris Tisch, Megan Scott and Shannon Tan contributed to this report.
