Charley Advisories

[Aquawind]

Personaly..after seeing the widespread destruction for real..pictures just don't interest me anymore..I was in Port Charlotte yesterday and don't need anymore visuals..They will need volunteers for months to come if anyone is interested..I have never seen anything like it for real..Metal and Concrete seemed like wood products.. I am amazed more people weren't killed directly from the storm..many buildings just exploded and I am not talkin trailers...................................

[charleston_hugo_veteran]

Thanks for the pics.

[cape_escape]

I agree, I can't believe more lives wern't lost as well! It was the most horrible site a person could imagine! Where are you from Aquawind? After seeing the destruction there, my husband now says he will take me more seriousely from now on! My husband and I both said that you can't really know how bad it is, unless you are there in the middle of it. Pictures don't begin to tell the whole story.

[LaBreeze]

Thanks for sharing with us. Looking forward to your other pics.

[BocaGirl]

[/quote="Aquawind"]They will need volunteers for months to come if anyone is interested..[/quote]

Aquawind, do you know who volunteers should contact if they want to help? We have a lot of people in Boca who would be happy to help out with the relief efforts.

Sometimes it's hard to match up the right volunteers with the people who need them. I've been working over here at trying to coordinate some of those efforts.

You can PIM me or post names/phone numbers/e-mail addresses if you have them. Thanks.

BocaGirl
Barbara

[Aquawind]

Hi cape_escape.. Bonita Beach here..we got nuttin compared to that wreckage..although I was without power for a few days..very limited structural damage..Pool Cages were a popular munchie for Charley down here..I was up there Saturday and plan on doing the same for the next few Saturdays..

Hi BocaGirl, My suggestion is get a group of people and call Fema..This is a tough job to organize the cleanup and 2 or 3 people will have a hard time making a dent in this heat..Seems like they are looking for crews..like roofers..or simply picking stuff up and taking it to the curb for pickup..We had 8 in our crew and made 3 stops..
First was simply cleaning up a backyard of shingles and junk..
Second stop we cut trees and hauled to the street(Brought our own chainsaws and tools)..
Third place was a 74 year old lady who lost her roof and all the wet carpet in the house had to be removed..

http://www.news-press.com/news/weather/ ... elief.html

The heat is just like you know it so bring plenty of fluids and patience..

http://www.news-press.com/news/weather/ ... index.html

This is a biggest event EVER for the Red Cross so they need help as well..

http://www.news-press.com/news/weather/ ... hones.html

The fewer the vehicles the better..with power, traffic lights, and signage out it is hard to keep the caravan together and easy to get lost unless your from the area..


People are still calling into Fema everyday so the list for help is not shrinking much..

[cape_escape]

Paul, mys sister is making a trip down here from Tampa over Labor Day weekend and we both would like to help in some way in Punta Gorda. Thanks for the links, I think I'll try to get something together for that weekend. I'm sure they will need help for a while to come, unfortunatly.

[Huckster]

Tampa http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tbw/CharleyWebPage.shtml

Melbourne http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mlb/charley/

[cape_escape]

Thanks for posting this, I wasn't sure how to find it.

[AussieMark]

Losses from Charley could hit $15 Billion
By David Sedore

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Economic losses for Hurricane Charley could total $15 billion, the Insurance Information Institute estimated on Monday.

That includes $7.4 billon in insured losses the institute estimated for the storm last week, a big enough number to make Charley the second-most destructive hurricane in history.

Economic losses also include lost wages, uninsured and under insured wind-related losses and uninsured flood losses.
"It wouldn't surprise me if uninsured losses total $4, $5, $6 billion," said Bob Hartwig, the economist with the industry group who developed the insured-loss estimate, speaking during a news conference Monday.

Hartwig said mobile homes might make up one major component of the uninsured. Coverage is costly and the deductibles are high, so many owners who do not have loans on their mobile homes opt to go without it.

Another segment might be the retired, who sold homes up north and had the cash to buy a home in the affected areas without having to secure a mortgage, or who might have made improvements to their homes without updating their insurance coverage.

By comparison, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 caused about $30 billion in economic losses, including about $15 billion in insured losses.

Hartwig and other insurance representatives said Charley won't disrupt the industry the way Andrew did, nor give homeowners a kick in the wallet. Andrew caused 11 insurance carriers to go bankrupt, and set off a tidal wave of rate increases that has continued to the present, especially in South Florida.

No carriers are expected to go belly-up because of Charley, and while premiums likely will continue to rise, there shouldn't be a Charley-related acceleration.

"When Andrew struck, we had a 1960s-style insurance system handling the first major storm in modern Florida history," said Sam Miller of the Florida Insurance Council. "We can handle another major hurricane this season, no question about it."

In other related developments Monday:

• Nationwide projected its losses for the storm at $380 million and it expects 40,000 claims. The Columbus, Ohio-based insurer said it had received 15,000 homeowners claims overall, including 800 claims of $25,000 or more.

• State Farm, Florida's largest insurer by market share, reported 64,633 homeowners claims and 12,130 auto claims as of noon Monday. Spokesman Tom Hagerty said the company still had no estimate on either the total number of claims it expects to receive or a dollar figure for those claims.

• RLI Corp. said it expected its insured losses from Charley to fall between $3 million and $4 million, net of its reinsurance coverage.

[Josephine96]

About 160 KUA customers still remain without power as a result of Hurricane Charley.. that's down from the nearly 6,000 at the beginning of the week.

KUA states those last few customers should have power back by tonight. KUA is the only electric company in Central Florida with residents still in the dark.

Also today.. the comfort station set up at the BVL Community Center has stopped giving out water and ice, and will serve it's last round of meals today.

The station has been opened since August 15th.

[Pebbles]

Does that mean you have electric now? I missed any post you may have made when/if you got it back.

[Josephine96]

Hello Pebbles.. No I'm one of the 160 without lights still LMAO j/k..

I got mine back on Tuesday afternoon

[cape_escape]

Those poor people!!!!

[Pebbles]

Bet that was a relief. Been thinking about when you said you had a kiddo in the house ...right? Well couldn't imagine dealing with mine for that long. The rare times it goes out for a couple of hours they drive me bonkers! Between the fighting over who's flashlight is better and yelling to not touch the candles and get your coloring book AWAY from the flames I would be in the looney bin after the first week.

[Josephine96]

Yes it got nutsy around here lol

[dixiebreeze]

: Tampa Radar Failed Before Charley Hit

Construction workers toss a section of ceiling board onto a trash pile at the storm-damaged Charlevoi Condominiums Thursday, Aug. 26, 2004 in Punta Gorda, Fla. Hurricane Charley caused an estimated $7.4 billion in insured damage and destroyed about 12,000 homes and left 19,000 others with major damage. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)


August 27, 2004 07:32 AM EDT


WASHINGTON - As Hurricane Charley bore down on Florida this month, the principal radar covering the landfall area went down due to mechanical failure - and wasn't restored until 14 hours before the storm smashed into the state, according to documents and officials.

While backup radars still would have tracked the hurricane as it made landfall in the Punta Gorda area Aug. 13, they might not have detected any local tornadoes generated by the storm system, government and private weather experts said.

Residents of Tampa Bay know they had a close call, because the storm was thought to be headed their way. The Associated Press learned of the close call with the radar outage when the news service obtained an internal "Bi-Monthly Activity Report" of the National Weather Service.

"We performed yeoman service and got that radar up," said John McNulty, director of the NWS Office of Operational Systems. "There was no loss of life attributable to the radar being down."

Twenty-six U.S. deaths have been attributed to the storm, which suddenly made a sharp right turn into Florida's west coast, about 70 miles south of the originally projected bull's-eye.

"The Radar Operations Center Hotline, along with ROC contract support services staff, provided extensive assistance to the Tampa Bay WFO (Weather Forecast Office) on the evening of 12 August and into the early morning hours of 13 August to restore the radar to operation in advance of Hurricane Charley," the report said.

"The site had radar, transition power source and backup generator problems" and parts had to be flown in immediately, the report said. Weather Service officials said a contractor for the parts manufacturer also was dispatched to Tampa to oversee the repairs.

Floyd Hauth, a former Air Force meteorologist and now a private consultant to the federal government, said the memo demonstrates "time was very critical."

"They would have been in serious trouble without use of the radar. You couldn't track tornadoes," said Hauth, of Osceola Mills, Pa.

McNulty, the top Weather Service official for keeping the equipment operational, said in an interview the problems in Tampa began Aug. 10 during a routine test of the radar's backup power system.

A switch that was supposed to start the backup generator failed. This caused a transition power source (TPS) system - designed to operate for 13 seconds to prevent power surges - to remain on to power the radar. The TPS then failed, going to a safe mode to preserve its battery.

Those problems made the radar inoperable until Aug. 11, two days before the storm made landfall.

On Aug. 12, when it became clear the west coast of Florida was at great risk, another part failed - this time on the radar itself. The equipment, called a signal processor power supply, generates the signal from the radar. Without it, the system is useless.

With the storm getting closer, a frantic effort was under way to repair the system. At 4 p.m., replacement parts were ordered. At 9 p.m. McNulty was called at home and told of the problem. He, in turn, called National Weather Service Director David Johnson, a retired Air Force brigadier general.

The problem was fixed at 2:30 a.m., about 14 hours before Charley hit land. Weather Service officials, not taking any chances, had the radar operating on the backup diesel generator as soon as the part was installed.

Steven Cooper, the deputy regional director of the Weather Service's southern region, said radar sites at Melbourne, Miami and Key West also provide coverage for the west-central part of Florida where the hurricane hit.

"We feel very comfortable because our offices have such backup," he said, adding that overlapping radars work especially well because of the short distances between central Florida's east and west coasts.

Cooper agreed, however, that while the features of a hurricane are easy to detect on all the radars, the closest radar to a storm has the best fine resolution to pick up local tornadoes.

"The tornadoes you get are very small scale and very difficult to detect," Cooper said. "The farther away you are, it's harder to detect very small features."

Cooper said most tornadoes generated by a hurricane system are relatively weak and the damage paths generally are small. They are not the killer tornadoes that most people fear.

[Josephine96]

I was going to post this article.. but thought someone else would

[dixiebreeze]

LOL, well, I did. Seemed interesting to me and certainly in the context of the tropics.

[JonathanBelles]

Charley is spelled wrong.