Wired Mesh

Choo-Choo Charley

Hurricane Charley barreled into Florida like a freight train last night, and my hometown, Lake Wales, took a direct hit. My family had always assumed that such a thing wasn't possible, that any storm would disintegrate before it reached the center of the state. We were wrong. Charley was still a Category 2 hurricane when the eye passed over Highway 60 (about ten miles west of my childhood house) last night around 7 p.m. That means the northeast eyewall smacked right into my neighborhood. This from the Lakeland Ledger:

Over land, Charley lost some punch but still pummeled Lake Wales with gusts up to 101 mph and sustained winds of 95 mph for about 45 minutes, according to the Lake Wales Fire Department.

My father rode the storm out, crouching in the downstairs bathroom with our two dogs and a cat. (My mom's in Chattanooga this weekend.) I talked to him around 10 last night, and he said we'd lost a lot of trees, at least one of which fell onto our screened-in patio. One of our driveway light posts was crushed by debris. He didn't know much more than that, and I haven't spoken to him today; phone lines are down or busy across Florida. He did mention that one point last night, a rumor had gone over the radio that Bok Tower had simply fallen down. That now seems false, but it's a measure of the storm's force that for a time the idea appeared reasonable.

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UPDATE, 1:10 P.M.: I just spoke to my dad, who is well. He says Casa Mesh and the nearby duplex property he owns both endured the storm well. (The houses he built "didn't even shake" when the eyewall hit, tenants reported.) He managed to clear our driveway of tree limbs this morning, and is trying to clear a road at his property before the afternoon thunderstorms hit. So it seems we made it through okay.

Please pray for the people of Punta Gorda, who did not fare as well. This storm cut a path through one of the state's largest concentrations of trailer parks, and there was a lot of death.

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UPDATE, 1:31 P.M.: I just went to the Web site of the News Chief, the paper I interned with in high school, and found this photo of New Life Fellowship, the church I attended for much of elementary and high school. I think that's the church sign fluttering in the grass.

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UPDATE, 2:04 P.M.: The Ledger reports widespead damage in Lake Wales: collapsed houses, uprooted trees, downed power lines and the roof lifted off a nursing home where I used to visit residents as a high-school service project. "Many oaks in a park around Lake Wailes were uprooted, bleachers and press boxes were damaged at the city's baseball and softball facilities, and many of the newly restored windows in the 1919 Junior High School Building were broken... 'Bad, bad and worse,' J.T. Terrence, the city's Emergency Operations Center coordinator, said this morning."

Posted by mesh at August 14, 2004 12:41 PM | TrackBack