PUNTA GORDA, Fla. – Residents left homeless by Hurricane Charley’s 145 mph winds dug through their ravaged homes on Sunday, sweeping up shattered glass and rescuing what they could as President Bush promised rapid delivery of disaster aid.
With temperatures in the 90s and humidity that made it feel hotter, people waited with carts in long lines to buy ice. Supermarkets gave away water in five cities as just under 1 million people remained without power and 2,300 stayed in emergency shelters.
“It’s as close to hell as I can think of,” Khoum Khampapha, a Port Charlotte resident, said as he looked around his neighborhood of gutted homes. “It’s just breathtaking.”
As the storm weakened off the coast of New England, Bush surveyed the devastation in Florida, where the storm caused billions of dollars in damage and killed at least 16 people.
In and around Punta Gorda, trailer after trailer lay toppled. Others were blown apart, exposing interior walls that had been pushed down flat, with doorways leading to nowhere. Other rooms stood, but without ceilings or roofs to shelter them from the open sky.
Emergency officials pronounced Charley the worst hurricane to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
The hardest-hit areas appeared to be the retirement community of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte in Charlotte County, though federal officials expanded the disaster aid zone to 25 counties on Sunday. The median age of residents in Charlotte County is 54.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was sending teams of medical, urban rescue and communication workers; at least 60 semitrailers containing cots, blankets, meals, portable toilets, wash kits and other necessities; and truckloads of water and ice.
FEMA said the state has requested catastrophic housing for 10,000 people, and more than 4,000 National Guard troops have been activated.
J.B. Hunt, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the agency had established eight mobile kitchens and five feeding centers that will be capable of serving 9,000 meals a day by today.
The remnants of Charley dropped rain across the Northeast and whipped up choppy seas on Sunday, but caused little damage as the storm sped toward the North Sea.
Officials were still assessing the total damage in Florida. An initial estimate of $5 billion to $11 billion was based on the value of homes and insurance policies in Charley’s path, state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher said. Uninsured homes, businesses and cars were not included.
Heavy damage was reported on the Gulf Coast barrier islands.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Earl unleashed heavy rains and violent winds that felled trees and ripped off roofs Sunday in the eastern Caribbean, while hundreds of people sought refuge in shelters.
Earl’s path could take it anywhere between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Belize to the east-central Gulf of Mexico in four to five days, said Jamie Rhome, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Associated Press
Francisco Bernal sits in front of what used to be his home Sunday at the Pink Citrus Mobile Home Park on Pine Island, Fla. Hurricane Charley leveled the park.
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