It's been 10 years this week since Hurricane Charley ravaged the Southwest Florida area. It was the strongest hurricane to strike the U.S. since Andrew 12 years earlier and the first with a bull's eye on Lee County since Donna in 1960.
Craig Stewart, founder of Adventures in Paradise, witnessed this first hand with his wife, three sons, a dog and a parrot. Here is his story.
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| The National Hurricane Center prediction. |
In the late afternoon of August 12th, my oldest son approached me outside as I was securing shutters on the house. He had just spoken with my sister in law in Oklahoma, letting us know that my mother had just passed away. I took about ten minutes by myself, trying to get a grip on all that was happening. We finished with the house, and by early evening had completed securing the marina so that the staff could return to their homes to make final storm preparations. I took a bike ride along the beach to contemplate and grasp all that was happening. The weather had taken on the “calm-before-the-storm” look, which was reassuring in a strange way.
The next morning, Friday, August 13th the family arose early. We decided that my wife and youngest son would go to the mainland and my oldest and middle sons would stay with me on the island. Hugs and kisses as they set off for Port Sanibel Marina. The winds began to pick up slightly, much like a normal summer thunderstorm. At about 10:30 AM my middle son who was watching NBC-2 weather all morning, (Yes, we still had electricity, water, and cable television!), began to yell out “Holy “expletive”, you have got to see this! So all of us went to the T.V. and couldn’t believe what we were seeing! The weather man, (I believe it was Jim Reif), said the storm was “wobbling” and could be headed for Sanibel! He did a screen writer arrow on the chart. I could not believe what I was seeing. It looked like the arrow stopped at our front door! Needless to say, everything changed. We started removing all of the artwork off the walls, moving furniture, built a “safe room” in the middle of the house, putting all of our personal ID’s and supplies in the safe area. We moved our Double Yellow Headed Amazon Parrot, Gaspar, under the steps leading to the third floor, and we sat back and waited. Our house phone and each person’s cell phones were all ringing off the wall from calls coming in from all around country inquiring what was going on and were we ok!
My sons and I sat and waited. We had closed the French doors leading to our glassed in sun room that was shuttered closed. We could still see through the only un-shuttered window from a distance. The winds picked up and as the afternoon approached, we could feel the whole house, (which is a three story piling home) begin to sway and actually felt as if it were moving. The bird is clinging to the side of his cage at this point, motionless. The telephones are still ringing. We are in for real ride!
The winds kept getting stronger and stronger. We could hear roaring and banging. We could see through the sky lights sheets of tin from our roof flying everywhere! We could see the palm trees blow and disappear from our line of sight and then suddenly return upright. We could see the one un-shuttered window go “concave”, (from the barometric pressure), which I did not know could really happen without breaking. One of the French doors flew open. We ran to grab the door to pull it closed, securing it with my oldest son’s belt! We could see “white” over everything. Then the rains started pouring into the house, as our roof was gone. It was, as my middle son said, like King Kong on the roof shaking it like crazy.
The winds died down, the rain let up, we knew the storm was moving away, however, we would still have to contend with the predicted 15 foot storm surge. We did luck out, getting only about a 6 foot surge. Knowing the storm had passed us by and the surge did not reach it’s prediction, we ventured out of the house. We were safe, our house was safe, wet inside and out, but that was ok. Trees were down everywhere, nothing looked right. Was not even sure where our driveway really was. We had done a lot of praying and hoping and know we were very lucky guys!
The following 15 days, now that is a whole other story!
