2004-08-15 - 11:57 p.m.
For those of you who KNOW where I live�yes, I was hit by Hurricane Charley. I was lucky though and even though on the Doppler radar it LOOKED like it was going right over me, I am a bit more inland and my apartment complex was mostly unharmed. The damage in my neighborhood was loss of power, messed up water pressure, downed trees, downed branches, etc. So, we were okay and we had power again that very night. Some people in Florida still don�t have power, since FRIDAY. The hardest hit, but not the only place hit, was Charlotte County. They are the county right above ours. Mine is Lee County. Charlotte County�s three hospitals are totally non-usable. They had to evacuate them. They lost their fire departments to a lot of damage. Their downtown area was near the rivers and whatnot and that area is ruined. Hotels and other businesses are closed and lost indefinitely. Schools are closed for at least two weeks there. They evacuated their jail also.
There are also more inland counties that got swiped by the tornadoes from the hurricane, and they are called Hendry and DeSoto and they have a lot of their power still off and tree damage and their mobile home parks are damaged really bad.
My county, Lee, has a lot of barrier islands. Most of them are big for tourists and they might ring a bell for a lot of you. They are Sanibel, Captiva, Pine Island, Bokeelia, Matlacha, Fort Myers Beach (also known as Estero Island), Bonita Beach, etc. Oh, also Useppa Island. Useppa can only be reached by boat and has some major ritzy houses on it. They sustained a lot of wind damage and roof damage. Pine Island and Bokeelia lost nearly all their mobile homes. Some people had stayed not realizing that the hurricane was going up to a Category 4, once we realized the growing strength of it, they couldn�t leave. It was too late. There are people dead and in hospitals. One guy walked out during the storm and a tree fell on top of him. And the numbers are growing. Cuz now there are chainsaw accidents and generator accidents. Someone just died today from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Sanibel residents aren�t even allowed back on the island cuz they want to be absolutely sure things are safe. But really, there are no conditions that they would want to live in out there and they don�t realize that. There is no water, sewer, trash pickup, electricity, gasoline, nothing out there. Why would you want to go back? Well, they are territorial and want to see their properties and start to clean the mess up. There is roof damage, etc. On Fort Myers Beach, they had the most water surge and their road, Estero Boulevard, which is the road EVERYONE takes or crosses to go to the beach�it�s now completely covered in sand. It looks just like a dirt road. But last I heard, they didn�t want anyone going on that island either. But of course, some people are already there because they stayed there.
Like I said, luckily, my apartment was more inland and the trees around us are not that big. I think all of our windows are okay. Our rain gutter pipe things are all over the place. They are not secured that tightly to begin with, and that goes for every neighborhood. Not just mine. I was driving around for curiosity and I wanted to see the children�s school, which by the way, for my county, schools will not open until Thursday. My girls� school had damage to their playground which for a little kid to see that, is upsetting at their age. And if that�s the only thing they have to get upset about, then that�s a GOOD thing.
If we were the residents in the mobile home parks, then my poor children would be going through trauma, both physically and emotionally. My family�s houses are a different story. My sister has a lot of roof damage, so much so that she needed tarps put in place cuz of the leaks and her shingles are all over the neighborhood. She also has those big Australian pine trees in her backyard and surrounding her house and some of them are broken up real bad and pulling down on her power lines. My mom lost all of her trees, they split in half and fell all around her yard and into the neighbors� yards. My other sister lost her bedroom window and her roof was peeling up in the wind according to the neighbors.
My mom finally got electricity yesterday, which was Saturday, but my one sister with the roof damage will not have electricity yet for another ten days at least. Down in Naples, Jimbo still does not have electricity or water as of earlier today. He might have it now, but I�m not sure.
During the hurricane, it was eerie. Very windy and wet and the wind was howling and shaking the building. The winds around me were probably only about 75 miles per hour. Outside of my neighborhood in other parts of Fort Myers, some of the traffic signals hanging down to just about three feet above the road. There were huge trees, I�m talking the oak trees with the huge trunks that have the limbs that span the whole roof and yard of the house they are near�there are some of those here and they�re just down. The root balls are as big as my kitchen.
My kids went nuts during the hurricane. Spitting water at each other and throwing popcorn EVERYWHERE. This was after the electricity was off and I did not have a vacuum to use. It was the stress and worry seeping out of my pores that affected them. They sense things like that. But they were truly nuts. And they still are and they are driving me crazy. If I have work tomorrow (Monday), my mom said she can watch them if the daycare isn�t open. Since we don�t have school until Thursday, I�d be a little screwed if I didn�t have somewhere to send my kids. That�s if I have an ability to work or not. My work is in my neighborhood, so I think they would have electricity by now, but who knows.
A lot of places are closed cuz of the power ordeal. Texas electric companies are here helping our electric companies rebuild wires and poles and things. So are Georgia electric companies. The National Guard is here helping find dead bodies and direct traffic and clean up and whatever else they can do. President Bush and Governor Bush were here, but they stayed I think in Charlotte County. They are by far the most devastated.
It�s weird though. The poorer families in the trailer parks plus the elderly who live there, and then you have Sanibel and Captiva who are very rich. Hurricane Charley was a no holds barred son-of-a-bitch. They just showed on Bokeelia this dry boat dock and it was completely demolished with hundreds of thousands of dollars of boats inside damaged.
Not to mention, Charley ravaged Jamaica and the west side of Cuba, and all the Keys in Florida. Then he came at us, the Southwest region of Florida�went inland, traveled UP I-4 TO ORLANDO, up the other (east) coast to Georgia, the Carolinas, and on up all the way to New York and Maine and finally the Maritime Canada region. WHAT THE FUCK??? I�ve never ever seen a hurricane do that. Ever. Crossed the whole fucking peninsula of Florida and only lose one category level or so. Now, of course it�s just a tropical storm once again, but still.
Some of the schools are closed not only because of power, but they have roof damage and (ewww!) SEWER backup. When I rode down the road near my son�s school to check it out, there were the sewer lids on the street, just bubbling up through their holes in the lids. That area is close to the river, and the water simply had no place to go. I�m so glad my area is okay. My apartment is okay and I�m so grateful that I had electricity again that very night. My sister will not have electricity for several more days. Many other people will not have electricity or homes for that matter for several days to several weeks. We never thought it would happen in our area. People lost everything in some places, even their businesses. Totally wiped out all over.
We are on curfew currently, and like I said the National Guard is also here. People will be shot on site for looting. They also have a ban on alcohol sales. Thank God. Maybe that will cut down on the crime and whatnot. Plus, I thought of something. I pray all the time for my war on drugs that I have locally here to be unnecessary. I hate drugs and I�m against them and I just wish all the drug makers in the area would be arrested and their product be ruined and confiscated and dissolved. MAYBE, Hurricane Charley got rid of some of those people. Maybe some of the pot fields are ruined and maybe some of the crack makers are out of business just from not having electricity and stuff like that. I hope so. There could be SOME good to come out of this.
I might have work tomorrow. I�ll keep you updated. I won�t know until tomorrow. I mean, who the hell wants to work in an office after a hurricane? I do, just for the money. But I don�t know if our fax machine and whatnot will work. I don�t know the status of the court offices downtown. Mail will start to be delivered again tomorrow, since the mail system had to of course take a break since Friday. And that�s how a personal injury law firm runs its business, with phones, US mail, fax machines and computers. M�bien. And the court system. I do know that our law firm has other offices in Charlotte County which are probably ruined now, and also down in Naples and Arcadia�both places which might not have power yet. Yikes. So, I have to go to bed now cuz I have to get up and SEE if I have work tomorrow. So, good night.
Oh, by the way...on a funny note...my daughter Chloe has been especially wiley and nonsensical. Here is a true conversation:
TV: There is a new tropical depression working its way toward the Caribbean and it will most likely go through the Caribbean to...
CHLOE: Stop saying that stupid word.
ME: What word?
CHLOE: Caribbean. WHAT IS THAT?
TV: The Caribbean just had that hard hit from Charley but...
CHLOE: ARGHHHH. STOP IT. I HATE THAT stupid word!
ME: Caribbean?
TV: So, that's the area, right here in the Caribbean Sea where that next hurricane will...
CHLOE: God! Why does she have to say that stupid word???
ME: Caribbean? It's a place. It's where all those islands are. They are in what's called the Caribbean Sea.
CHLOE: Arghhhh. Don't you say it too, Mommy.
What the fuck ever. My children are crazy.
