Hurricane Charlie,the days after.

MustangLX-5.0

Founding Member
Dec 2, 2000
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Lehigh Acres Fla.
In such a long time has not a storm shown it's face to SW Florida.Hurricane Charlie reached a category 4 by the time it hit the Fort Myers area.A category 4 storm has wind speeds up to 145 mph from 30 miles from the storms eye.Even areas well past this received extensive damage.

Anyone reading this that was in the path of the storm,feel free to post a reply and let others know you are allright.

Well I'm glad to say i'm ok.That was such a massive storm.I live at the SW edge of Lehigh Acres just 3 miles from Fort Myers.The entire Lee county got hit pretty hard.The major damage was done at Fort Myers Beach,Sanibel Island,Cape Coral...and then up in Charlotte & Desoto county.Charlotte County is under Marshal law because of the extreme amount of damage that was done.I happened to stay out on the front porch during most of the storm.The worst part wasn't untill the storm surge hit.The winds and rain picked up so bad (about 80 mph),the trees were bending over completly sideways,the telephone pole on the corner was swaying back and forth heavily.Crap was blowing all over.Then all of a sudden,2 trees in the back snapped and took a dump in the middle of the yard.Luckily they didn't land on anything but the wire fence.

During all of this,the power went out.Most of Lee county was without power.After the storm,I had to go out and check on my sister and a friend.It was 9:30 at night and pitch black out.There was some traffic,but all of the stoplights were out because of the outages.I nearly missed my turn as I had been lost in the blur of headlights.That's about all you could see.Everything looked so different.When I finally get over my sisters I notice her yard is totally trashed with giant tree limbs.Luckily her house didn't take any damage.Just a couple 15 foot pine tree branches wedged into the back end of the lanai out back.

Many others did not fair so well.Fort Myers took worse damage,but the majority of damage took place along the places listed above.On Fort Myers beach,Estero blvd at one point had 10 feet of water during the storm surge.In Cape Coral,during the pass,the winds were a sustained 100 mph for over an hour straight.Some houses lost entire roofs.Fences and lanais were tossed halfway down the street.Light poles had their lights just barely hanging from the poles.In some areas you could see the telephone poles just leaning way over to the side.At one spot,someones shed managed to get wedged at the top of a telephone pole.Talk about out of the ordinary.In Charlotte county,entire communities were destroyed.Some people lost their lives.

Well,the power finally got restored at 11:30 this morning.Talk about a relief.Trying to sleep with no A/C,No fans.Having well water meant not having the means to shower and let me tell you,not being able to clean up for 2 days straight........ick!But many others had it worse.If I could help in any way,I would.

I have friends in some of these areas.I was not able to get over to the Cape to check on a couple people I knew.And phone lines were down so I had no way of finding out if they were allright.

For all of you out there who made it through the storm,feel free to post here.The more people that post here,the better.I know there were many that lived in the Cape and in Charlotte county.If you see this message,please post here so others know you are allright.And if you need assistance with clean up or repairs please do say so.I,and I am sure others that are within distance would be more than willing to help out.

Take care all

Heres a photo I took during the storm.It was much worse at one time but at that time I was recording in mpeg movie mode.
 

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Glad to see you are OK. It always amazes me the wrath Mother Nature can unleash when she is ticked. I've been through several storms myself the worst one being Andrew. Your description of the aftermath brought back memories. The damage where I lived was minimal compared to you but with tree's down and the power out it was an adventure to say the least. THere were several roads impassable because the power poles snapped and they were laying across the road. So you would have to make a U-turn and finds another way. Just trying to find a store to get milk and a loaf of bread required driving for an hour to find someplace that had power. After 3 days I was getting tired of 'cooking out'. Hope everyone else os doing ok as well...
 
Whats up guys. MustangLX, so is there power in all lehigh now? What about the business areas? Im in Labelle. We got some crazy wind and 3-4 in of rain but nothing to bad. We only lost weak structures like boat/buggie covers and sheds. I saw trees fallin the the distance, I live in the woods too. But nothing like up north. Its been absolutely nuts here in town the last few days. Poeple buying gas, food, and staying here. We had electricity almost the whole time. parts or town still dont have it but 95% does. We even had satellite TV the entire time! That dam thing goes out in rain showers! but stay on during a hurricane. Go figure. The Stang waethered well. I moved it to the road to keep tree stuff from bouncing off it. I took a pict during the one of the easier time but my digital batterydied before things really whipped up. Its in my garage here the last pict. Well, its good to know you made it ok. Some north of us didnt. I feel so blessed that we escaped so unstruck! Talk to you later. Good Luck.
Joe E.
 
That was the first hurricane I had ever seen. I had no damage to my house what so ever but my some of my neighbors were not so lucky. We had a tornado come through our neighborhood but it was about 100yrds from where my house was. We had a ton of trees down, roof damage, and my neighbor about three houses down had a huge tree fall down straight through thier roof into their living room. I have been without power since 10:20pm friday till about 6:10am today. It was a rough couple of days, you take a lot of stuff for granted, but it could of been worse.