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PUNTA GORDA - After 17 years of warnings and waiting, getting ready and sometimes getting ignored, Charlotte County's emergency management director is in the eye of the storm.
Wayne Sallade, 50, vaulted from his post in one of Florida's forgotten counties - lodged between glamorous Naples and bustling Tampa Bay - into the national spotlight when Hurricane Charley unexpectedly roared through on Friday.
When President Bush toured the disaster area Sunday, Sallade said he urged the president not to let the war on terrorism overshadow the danger of natural disasters.
"Our citizens had their terrorism Friday afternoon," Sallade said.
As the hurricane veered toward Punta Gorda, Sallade - pronounced salla-day - ran for cover and then calmly led the makeshift emergency command post at the Charlotte County Airport.
While Sallade hunkered down behind steel storm shutters inside the airport's administration office, downtown Punta Gorda was turned into a mess of tattered insulation, bricks and tangled power lines. Thousands were left homeless and hungry. Water, phone and electricity service ended.
"My town was destroyed," Sallade said Sunday. "It's been tough. We came through a 10-mile-wide tornado, basically. The emotional scars on people are going to be hard to deal with."
Sallade has been on the job since 1987, warning the 160,000 residents of Charlotte County about the dangers of hurricanes, wildfires, flooding rains and lightning. Most of the time, people have been pretty good about listening, he said.
But since 4 p.m. Friday, when the hurricane began tearing through downtown Punta Gorda and raking neighboring Port Charlotte, everyone has been listening to Wayne Sallade.
When he emerges from the county's Emergency Operations Center, all ears and cameras focus on Sallade. Reporters from around the country want to know the numbers: How many dead? How many missing? When will the power come back? What will people eat? Where will they go?
Sallade has some, but not all, of the answers. In an emergency services meeting Saturday night, he gathered representatives from the federal and state government, local hospitals, law enforcement offices, and public works. He told them he was proud of how the county and visiting officials pulled together in the 24 hours after the storm, and he warned there remains much to do.
On Saturday afternoon, he met with Gov. Jeb Bush. On Sunday, sporting a three-day growth of salt-and-pepper beard, he walked the streets of Punta Gorda with the governor's brother, President Bush.
He said he told the president that his county needs help now. And he warned about focusing on terror threats at the expense of disaster preparedness.
"Everything has been focused on Sept. 11, and that's fine, so long as we don't fail to realize that there are natural disasters, too," Sallade said.
Sallade said he was proud of the warnings his team put out Thursday, ordering evacuations of barrier islands and mobile home parks, in a county where there are 22,000 mobile homes. But the evacuation orders could be based only on the information he had, Sallade said.
Charley was supposed to be a Category 2 storm, not the Category 4 monster that gusted to 173 mph over downtown Punta Gorda. It was supposed to veer north, not hug Charlotte Harbor.
Sallade, who lives in Port Charlotte, said his home escaped major damage.
A 1976 graduate of Florida State University, Sallade studied mass communications. He was in broadcasting for 10 years and was a sports writer for the Charlotte Sun newspaper. And after he took on the job as county emergency services coordinator, he continued to moonlight as the public address man at Texas Rangers spring training games for 16 years, until the team moved its training to Arizona.
While President Bush owned the Rangers, he would visit Port Charlotte for two weeks a year, Sallade said.
"He came up to the press box at every single game," he said.
Sunday's meeting with the president was a reunion, Sallade said. Showing Bush the damage was an important step in securing the federal backing the county will need to rebuild, he said.
Bush, he said, appeared shocked. But after viewing the destruction from the air and on foot, Sallade said, Bush gets it.
"He understands," Sallade said. "He knows."
Sallade said Bush promised help and congratulated the county officials for a job well done so far. The president also praised the emergency service workers, both local and from the counties and agencies that have sent aid.
"I can't tell you how many people came up and hugged him as we walked," Sallade said.
Now comes the hard part, he said. Everything must be rebuilt. It will take months, even years, to replace the things that were lost.
"It's time to meet the needs of the people," he said. "It's time to stop bitching about Charley and get busy."
Sallade said one thing will be easier in the future: getting Charlotte County residents to listen to evacuation advisories the next time a storm threatens.
"People here, they'll never forget this," he said. "There's no way. You can't."