Okay, okay, I get it now and will run the next time
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published August 20, 2004
I don't know why I bother with this. You won't listen to me.
I never listened.
But after riding out Hurricane Charley in a darkened building in Punta Gorda one week ago today, hearing the roar of the 145 mph wind and the clang of aluminium, trees and debris slamming into the steel hurricane shutters around me, I believe.
If a hurricane is churning in the Gulf of Mexico, and someone in emergency management tells you to evacuate, run like hell.
If you live in a mobile home, get a head start.
There is no predicting a hurricane's path. There is no predicting a hurricane's strength.
And there is no way to convey the terrifying power of the wind, no way to help you understand the misery of life in the rubble afterward. It seems like you have to live through it to understand, and that's no way to live.
Pauline Somers, 89, thought it would be okay to defy the evacuation order and stay behind in her mobile home in Punta Gorda. It was only going to be a small storm, a Category 2, she thought. And even then, it was only going to brush the coast on its way to Clearwater.
The storm changed course in a flash and blossomed into a monster; it slammed into her home. She held on to her refrigerator to keep from being flung from wall to wall as the mobile home shivered under the assault. To her left and right, both neighboring mobile homes were demolished. She survived. There are those who want to scold her and others who like her for not running from the storm.
But that's unreasonable. It's so hard to know, to believe, until you've lived through it. I know they should have run. But that's in hindsight.
I've never listened. I scoffed at evacuation warnings, even when I lived in a rented manufactured home.
I was even a little peeved about being evacuated from my waterfront hotel in Punta Gorda, less than two hours before the storm made landfall. When a police officer knocked on the door and said I had to go, I told him it was okay, I'm with the press.
The look he gave me was comical. Like, "What the heck does that have to do with surviving a hurricane?"
I don't know what I thought. Somehow, I was going to be only an observer? The cop told Times photographer Scott Keeler and me to beat it.
In the parking lot outside, I told Scott we could probably just drive around town as the storm came ashore. Shelters were for wimps, I reasoned.
Category 2 storm winds run 96-110 mph.
By the time I understood Charley was a Category 4 storm, sustained winds from 131-155 mph, it was almost too late. It was raining. It was windy. Only Scott had a concept of what we were in for. I was still clueless, but when he insisted we run for cover, I went along.
For an idiot like me, listening to Scott was probably one of the smartest things I'll ever do.
We found an official hurricane shelter. It was closed, not strong enough to withstand the blow. We headed to the Charlotte County Emergency Operations Center, but the people there were evacuating to the nearby airport. The EOC building wasn't built to survive a storm like Charley.
We joined them at the airport. The storm pounded our shelter, but the walls held.
Charlotte County Emergency Management director Wayne Sallade later told me that while I was feeling safer because I was with the pros at the airport's makeshift shelter, he was watching the wind tug at the bolts that held the steel hurricane shutters in place. If one panel failed, anywhere on the building, the building would be lost, he said. The roof would come off, and the debris being fired at our fort would find 62 human targets.
Another 10 minutes of peak winds and a panel probably would have let go, he said.
By 6 p.m., after nearly 90 minutes of high winds and sheets of rain, most of Charlotte County was laid waste. The hotel room we were kicked out of was gone, along with the second floor.
Most times, I try to make people laugh with this column. But Charley had no punch line. Just a punch.
Pasco County Emergency Management director Michele Baker ordered evacuations when it looked like Charley was headed toward Pasco County. So many people ignored the order.
