Online auctions are trying to cash in on the hurricane's remains.
By DAVE GUSSOW
Published August 18, 2004
Hurricane Charley tore parts of Florida into millions of pieces. And a few have made it to online auction giant eBay.
On Wednesday, about 100 auctions were listed - some seemingly serious, some light-hearted attempts to cash in. Most auctions had no bids, while an offer for sharks teeth from a beach Charley hit had five bids topping out at $7.20.
A family in Deltona was trying to sell parts of damaged homes to raise money for repairs, but no one had bid by Wednesday afternoon. An Oviedo man offered "Hurricane Charley Chips" from his house and downed trees, and had one bid at $1.
"An actual street sign (1st St. N) blown away by Hurricane Charley" had one bid, for $1. The Jacksonville seller was promising to donate proceeds to help victims. Another seller tried to raise money for an orphaned newborn kitten.
Then there was a Hurricane in a Bottle, a small vial of water, with a certificate of authenticity, "sampled over a 2 hour duration during the storm."
Storm-related entrepreneurs also came up with some vintage Florida souvenirs: official Hurricane Charley air (in a Ziploc baggie, Mason jar or unspecified packaging), T-shirts (including "I survived..." or "you missed me" varieties), and a video that "contains graphic and extremely emotional scenes with adult language."
Unlike some auctions after other tragedies, the online offerings from Charley are fairly tame. EBay blocked auctions related to the World Trade Center shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and it took down an auction last year from a Dallas-area seller who offered to find debris from the Columbia space shuttle disaster for $10,000.
At least nine auctions solicited donations for storm victims, though charitable solicitation experts already have recommended that people donate directly to well-known, reputable organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army and United Way. One eBay auction in fact directed people to the Red Cross Web site.
Other auctions had tenuous ties to the storm at best. "Lucky Monkey who survived Hurricane Charley" was around for more than a year. But the seller said it "brought us the very best of all possible luck as Hurricane Charley past right over us" and didn't damage his home.
One seller cut the price on items he had been offering, managing to change the price while saying he couldn't respond to buyer questions because he had no electricity.
Then there's the "HURRICANE CHARLEY DIPLOMA **AWESOME**." The certificate, from "Charley State University," confers a "doctorate of hurricanes." Bidding starts at $9.95.
As of Wednesday, there were no takers.
-- Information from Times files was used in this report. Dave Gussow can be reached at 727 771-4328 or gussow@sptimes.com
