4 years ago today...

[Cyclone1]

[Category 5]

Man was that a day to remember. There was not a thought that this would strengthen to 130kts and go into Charlotte Harbor.

[Cyclone1]

I know... Still feels like yesterday to me.

[Scorpion]

This storm is what really got me into tracking.

[HurricaneHunter914]

Same here. This storm is what started it all for me. Even as a cat-1, Charley really brought intimidating weather to my former home of Sanford.

[HurricaneBill]

Footage from Jim Leonard in Port Charlotte

Footage from Jeff Gammons in Punta Gorda

Footage from Jim Edds in Punta Gorda

[Extremeweatherguy]

That was a crazy day indeed! I woke up only expecting minor tropical storm force winds in Orlando, and I wound up seeing Cat. 1 force sustained winds with gusts over 100mph.

[O Town]

This storm is what really got me into tracking.

Ditto that.
It still amazes me how much wind damage we got this far inland from landfall, and how many houses were lost here.

[Sanibel]

Four years ago this hour I was evacuated to a relative's house in Miami freaking out seeing what was an exploding category 4 headed towards Sanibel and thinking we were going to be flattened by another Andrew. Lucky that didn't happen. Later that day my relative suggested we try calling the house and the phone rang - meaning it was still connected to a wall. I had 5 miserable days in the arena shelter and another 3 days in serious 90* heat with electric shutters stuck in the down position, no sewer, water, or electric etc.

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

Charley was scary, especially when it hit Category 4.
Saint Pete just got 30 mph winds maybe TS force gusts
but it was much worse in Port Charlotte

[Cyclone1]

The bottom picture looks exactly like my grandparents house after Charley. They live in Polk County, which is landlocked.

Charley remained very strong and damaging all the way through the state...

[MGC]

I'd trade Charley for Katrina any day. Any takers? I still remember the sudden upgrade shortly after the 11am advisory. I drove thru Port Charlette last year. It was 3 years after Charley and the recovery had progressed well, I could hardly tell a Cat-4 had hit......MGC

[KWT]

Ah yes Hurricane Charley, the first hurricane I tracked and one of the most amazing to watch develop and track even to this day, it was small but packed a monster punch, to think it was only a tiny bit shy of being US 4th landfalling cat-5....

[Cyclone1]

I'd trade Charley for Katrina any day. Any takers? I still remember the sudden upgrade shortly after the 11am advisory. I drove thru Port Charlette last year. It was 3 years after Charley and the recovery had progressed well, I could hardly tell a Cat-4 had hit......MGC

I can tell. I've been going to Boca Grande my whole life, and there are acres of trees that are gone. Luckily, Charley was a wind event. Had it been a surge event, imagine how much more damaging it could've been.

[JonathanBelles]

On this day 4 years ago I was holding out windows thinking why did I move to Florida. That day does seem so very much like yesterday. When Dennis on ABC said it was going to Punta Gorda it was a great gasp of fresh air. Watching Don Gremaise 'hunker down' in that hotel that was supposed to be safe was a large part of why I got into hurricanes and weather. Its still scary even thinking that I was in ground zero and then visiting Punta Gorda, areas in Polk County and places in Boca Raton over the years and seeing what the monsters can do in such a large area in just a few hours.

[Honeyko]

I'd trade Charley for Katrina any day.

No you wouldn't. A Katrina-sized storm would blitz a 35ft dome of water right up the bay and flatten the entire town. It'd be just like Banda Aceh, only with banshee winds on top of it all. Afterwards, there'd be several dozen miles of coastline, and up to who-knows-how-far inland, that'd look just like this (warning: graphic).

On the scale of Ungodly Disasters that could possibly visit the US, a Cat-5 roaring up one of the southwest-facing Florida bays (like Tampa) into a retirement community is one of the absolute worst.

[tolakram]

Links to those pics was uncalled for in my opinion. I was not in the mood to see a bunch of dead bodies. Surge from a cat 5 does not compare to a giant tsunami.

jeepers

[Honeyko]

surge from a cat 5 does not compare to a giant tsunami.

From the various videos, the tsunami in Banda Aceh was 10' to 15' in most places (that video was shot from a second-floor). A storm surge funneling up one of those bays would behave fairly similar: it'll pile up and accelerate. It wouldn't be a gentle rise. (And how many retirees are living in two-story steel/concrete-pillared homes in those towns? Not many, I'll bet. As New Orleans demonstrated, even a gently rising flood will kill large numbers of the mobility-impared.)

[CrazyC83]

I'd trade Charley for Katrina any day. Any takers? I still remember the sudden upgrade shortly after the 11am advisory. I drove thru Port Charlette last year. It was 3 years after Charley and the recovery had progressed well, I could hardly tell a Cat-4 had hit......MGC

It's a lot easier to rebuild an area when the swath is narrow (and there wasn't much of a storm surge from Charley).

If Charley had even 3 more hours of water, he probably would have made it to Category 5...

[Honeyko]

"My Most Incredible Hurricane Disaster Scenario": interesting reading, courtesy of Steve Lyons.

His disaster scenario would be even worse if the origin storm began as a late-season Wilma-esque tracking system, but took an initially NNW then N track. Over the extreme heat-content of the northwest Caribbean, it quickly explodes into a Mitch/Katrina-style "donut-cane" south of the west end of Cuba. It begins to accelerate, and hits the Isle of Youth at 180mph/905mb, then crosses over Havana. Due to the limited topography, the storm only weakens to 150, and quickly re-intensifies back to 165 as it crosses the Florida Straits. It then slants ever so slightly to the NNE, continues accelerating, and runs right up Tampa Bay, a tad toward the left side, at over 20mph forward speed. Mid-level dry intrusion and shear begin impacting the system near Jacksonville, but by then it's well past being too late for Tampa/Pete: Between the monstrous surge and the right-flank-propelled waves on top of it, all wood-frame and non-steel-reinforced buildings in the waterfront communities are razed.

The whole region is rendered into mud-flats, denuded of vegetation and signs of human habitation other than pipes and other hard bits. A "debris dam" rings the Bay five to ten miles inland, resembling a glacial terminal moraine in aerial photography. It takes over a day for the water to drain back out into the Gulf. The Bay itself remains a stew of floating wreckage for months afterward. Casualties are utterly horrific.