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August 13, 2004, while watching the news and keeping track of hurricane Charlie, I decided that on it's current track I only needed to cover the windows in the front of the house. An hour and a half later with that task complete, I went back to the news to check on Charlie. To my surprise it had made a right turn and coming straight at us. I only had enough time to cover two more windows. It was coming FAST! My wife, Elaine, and next-door neighbor, Kathy, decided to ride it out at my humble abode, a brick house with a relatively new roof. None of us really knew what to expect, sense this was the first direct hit in Wauchula for more then 44 years. Hurricane Donna was the last hurricane to make a visit here in 1960. As the winds picked up we sat at the kitchen table looking out the window, watching things blow around. When the winds reached 45mph the power company turned off the power. It was a typically hot summer day here before the storm, but as Charlie grew nearer the temperature began to drop. It was actually pleasant, even inside the house. As wind speed picked up the house started making strange and frightening sounds. Wind managed to find its way into every crack and crevice. As the eye-wall approached and the winds were up over 100 mph, the pine trees in my yard were bent over double. We could not believe they weren't breaking. Then, a sudden and vary loud noise! "That sounded metallic" I said. Then something slammed against the house, something big. I could not see anything because that side of the house was boarded up. Then we could hear it as it moved up over the roof and down into the back yard. Looking out the kitchen window I still could not see what made this horrible noise. It had landed just on the other side of my privacy fence that surrounds my pool. I had my ham radio on and the National Weather Service reported that the wind speed in my area was near 140 mph. I could not believe the noise. My front door sounded like it was getting ready to explode. We all decided we better move into the center of the house. We went to the master bathroom, where Elaine got into the tub, Kathy sat on the commode, and I sat on a folding chair propped up against the door. I have to admit, I was really scared. My brick house was vibrating. The walls were vibrating, the ceilings were vibrating and I really wasn't sure it was going to hold together. We stayed there about half an hour before I ventured out into the house to see if we were leaking water anywhere. When I looked out the kitchen window I could see that my privacy fence was down on the ground and a big oak tree was in my pool. Also along with the tree, I could see a large steel building, (probably the metallic noise we heard) wrapped around the tree. The wind had died down some so I thought I would open the front door to look out front. I un-did the dead bolt lock, turned the knob, and then found myself pushed back against the wall, and my mouth bleeding. It took every once of strength I had to get that door closed and locked. I won't go into details about what was said to me by Elaine. I had it coming! Seconds later, the phone rang. Yes! The telephone was working. Unbelievable! I answered it. It was my son Jeremy calling from California. He was watching TV and just realized that we were in the middle of a hurricane. I asked him to tell us how long we had before we were out of it. "I'm guessing around half hour to 45 minutes" he said. At this point in the storm, we were getting simo-cast news on the portable radio. All the radio stations were re-broadcasting Channel 8 TV out of Tampa. And we could not figure out where we were in the storm. About an hour later the wind died down enough to go outdoors and see what Charlie had left us. Looking up and down the street, we were all in disbelief. We could not believe the damage. There was not a leaf left on a tree, of the trees that were still standing. The house directly across the street from was completely covered over with oak trees. We could not see the house at all. Trust me when I say, they were glad they went to a shelter. Checking out the damage done to our house I could see lots of shingles missing from the roof. The front lawn was totally covered with tree limbs and debris. My chain link fence was on the ground; the roof was blown off my utility shed. Because it was getting dark we decided to call it a day and figure out how we were going to sleep. Well, we didn't. As it got light the next morning, we discovered we could not go anywhere. Huge oak trees covered the roads. My Explorer, 2wd, didn't have enough ground clearance to get over the trees (Today we have a Ford F150 4x4.) We set about figuring out how we were going to survive the next few weeks. No electricity, no air conditioning, no water, no toilets, no showers, not much food, no way to travel, no television, (But the telephone worked? That still blows my mind!) Underground telephone cables work! As the day progressed, the temperature got up into the 90's, with the humidity a pretty close to match. We spent the day hauling debris out of the front yard, stacking it up on the edge of the street. Actually, we spent many days hauling debris to the street. It was pilled so high you could hardly see the houses from the road. The county road department had their big front-end loaders pushing the trees to the sides of the streets. It took several days but finally we could move around. We discovered all the grocery stores were destroyed or damaged so badly they could not open. There was no gasoline to be had. This did not look good! But we were campers and still had lots of our camping equipment. We took showers when it rained, catching the water running off the roof. The FEMA folks were Johnny on the spot hauling in water and ice and setting up trailers where families could get food, cooked meals and other necessities. We did not have electric or water for 13 days. I started driving to Tampa every three or four days for R&R. Find a nice restaurant with air and enjoy a meal and COLD drinks. We had no meat or any way to keep it cold even if we had it so Tampa was a treat. They also had gas there. We managed to get a generator so we could run some fans and watch some TV. Hardee County had over 700 miles of transmission line down. They had to replace every power pole in my neighborhood and rewire the entire city of Wauchula. I am amazed that it only took 13 days. I could probably write several more pages about this experience but I'll finish this by saying, I was one of the lucky ones. It's now March and we still have over 200 families living in FEMA campers in this county and lord knows how many others are without homes in other parts of Florida. I have a new roof on my house, a new roof on my utility shed, my chain link fence is back up, most of the tree trimming is done and all I lack now is repairing the pool deck that was broken from the oak tree, finish getting the tree out of the pool and putting up a new privacy fence. This should all be done in time for the next hurricane season. This was NOT a good experience. But we survived! By Larry Cook Return to my 2005 Trip. |