The hurricane pounds training camp and rearranges the team's schedule as Tampa Bay plays Monday and Friday.
By ROGER MILLS
Published August 15, 2004
LAKE BUENA VISTA - As Bucs receiver Charles Lee watched footage Friday of Hurricane Charley's destructive path, he couldn't help but remember being in his parents' home in Homestead when Andrew came calling in 1992.
Lee and five family members spent about nine hours hunkered down in the bathroom while Andrew tore the rest of the house apart.
In the months after, Lee and his family lived in a mobile home on the site of the original house.
Friday, he was in it again. Though this time, he was more fortunate.
"I knew what to expect because I've been through it before," Lee, 26, said. "If we were somewhere near that eye, I don't think I would have wanted to be in the hotel with all that glass. This one was nowhere near (Andrew), but it still made you appreciate just the little things, like hot showers, food and electricity."
Lee, and most of his teammates and coaches, returned to the business of football Saturday at the eerily quiet Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in preparation for Monday night's game against the Bengals.
But while everyone was happy to be back, the impact of spending a night in Orlando while Charley pounded on the door left a lasting impression.
"When you drive to practice and you see 1,200-pound palm trees ripped out of the ground and thrown around on the streets, hundreds and hundreds of them, it lets you know how lucky you are to make it through the night," coach Jon Gruden said. "It was wild. It was unbelievable. The force that was displayed last night was something I had never seen. It's amazing that the damages here weren't as bad as what they might have been. I see trees down, I'm just happy a lot of these houses didn't get uprooted and more people hurt."
Players expressed sympathy for those who were directly affected by Charley's force.
"It was scary for everybody," quarterback Brad Johnson said. "You worry about everyone back home in Tampa, because that's where we thought it was going to hit. It was mayhem for everybody with our families loading up with groceries and gas and everything. ... Football was the last thing on everybody's mind at that time."
The Bucs said they felt fortunate the hurricane did not have any serious effect on their families but admitted it did create some logistical problems.
The preseason opener scheduled for Saturday was postponed until Monday, and because the Bucs play in Jacksonville Friday night, the team was forced to break camp today instead of Wednesday. The Bucs will have one day to prepare for the Jaguars.
"It affects us a lot," Gruden said. "We had to do what we had to do. It was a scary and very dangerous situation here (Friday) night and we had to adjust the schedule the best way we could. We're going to play the game on Monday night, but it's been, obviously, a radical change in the schedule for both us and Cincinnati."
The Bengals, who ironically flew into Orlando late Thursday night in an effort to avoid Charley, also practiced at the complex and were allowed to use the Bucs' weightlifting facilities.
"Well, it's not really been a real problem, other than it will be a bit of an adjustment when we get back, having to go back on a shorter week," Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said. "For us, it's been good for us to get away. You come to a new environment, you focus a little bit more on football again. It's kind of like training camp, within training camp."
Like so many of his teammates, offensive guard Jason Whittle feared Charley would land in Tampa Bay. He had his wife, Natalie, three daughters (ages 3, 19 months and 4 months) and a sister join him in Orlando.
Whittle said it didn't take him long to realize they made a mistake.
"As soon as we saw it was coming to Orlando," Whittle said. "My wife didn't want to be by herself. But my three little girls didn't know what was going on. They were having a blast."
Tight end Dave Moore, who lives on the east side of Treasure Island, was given permission to return home.
"I basically went home and collected all the things that insurance couldn't cover, like documents, pictures, videos, memorabilia, stuff you can't replace," said Moore, who had a friend close his storm shutters. "With a 7-foot storm surge, I'll have water in my kitchen. And they were talking about 14 feet and that would pretty much cover my downstairs. So, if it had hit where it was supposed to hit, I would have been in some serious trouble."
Moore, who was with the Dolphins in 1992 when Andrew hit, said he remembered the devastation it caused and tried to share it with his teammates.
"When you don't own property on the water, it's a big party to you," Moore said, "until you realize the next day the devastation it does. ... It's really nothing to mess around with. It's a very small area that gets romped badly, and those that do, its pretty serious. My thoughts go out to those down in the Fort Myers area."
