Hurricane Charley Bypass

Diane: It's been a week since Hurricane Charley passed us by. For the day or two leading up to the storm, our house was forecast to be flooded by a 10'-14' storm surge. OH HOW LUCKY WE WERE!

This could have been us:

Calliope: We got to stay at Uncle Charles' house. It was really fun; I got to sleep in the TV room and watched as much television as I wanted (that is, until Mom kicked me out to do Florida Virtual School).

Julie: When Calliope was at Charley house (wink wink), I was at my grandma's house away from her (tear tear). Ah, but we were on the phone 24/7. Hurricane Charley did not hit but it got Charlotte and Lee counties. You get it CharrrrLee.

Tom: Storm out on the Gulf Stream, big 'cane comin' soon... There was no reasoning with this, Charley was coming, no matter how ready we were, we might be out of luck. The projected track had Charley making landfall at Anna Maria Island, twenty miles north of us. Living on a barrier island is a joy, until you hear that a hurricane is coming. Our house was built in the early 1960's, single story, slab foundation, cement block walls, nice and solid and no post-Andrew mandated structural reinforcements for holding the roof to the walls. Hit by 145 mph winds our beautiful white metal roof would probably lift off and fly across the Sarasota Bay like a Frisbee. This would be a bummer. The other edge of a hurricane's sword is the storm surge. The Coriolis effect is an inertial force described by the 19th-century French engineer-mathematician Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis in 1835. The Coriolis Effect is what makes the water swirl counterclockwise when you flush. It works on hurricanes, too. Where we live, to the north of the eye the wind pushes the water out into the Gulf of Mexico. To the south of the eye, the wind pushes the water toward the shore.The tide starts to rise and just keeps rising, up past the tidal debris line, up past the low dunes and sea oats, up over the beautiful landscaping of the waterfront mansions. Everyone on the island wishes they had waterfront and now, for a while, they will. The water just keeps rising, pushed by the circling winds. The island becomes an underwater sandbar. We are at six feet above mean high tide, a ten to fourteen foot storm surge would turn our house from a habitation into a hazard to navigation. This doesn't even begin to address making the choices of what you carry away to safety and what you leave behind. We were fortunate this time. The storm came ashore fifty miles south of us, we had nothing but a summer rain on that Friday the thirteenth that Charley came a callin'.

TM: When the hurricane struck, I was in Rowe, MA. I was completely cut off from almost all contact with civilization. I had been calling my house for the last day and a half, and had been leaving messages during the time as no one was there to pick up. I found out about the hurricane from a friend who answered the rec hall phone, delivering a disturbingly garbled message that there had been a hurricane and that everyone was alright. This did little to assuage my fears, and I was not able to get in touch with ANYONE for the next few hours. Eventually I got through, and found out everything was alright, but it was a bummer to have my night stomped by worry.

Grandbird: There were seven of us staying at Charles' house. Ace, myself, Diane, Tom, Calliope Hilda & Lisa. Although the threat of a storm remained until 2:30 p.m. on Friday, we all had a pretty good time with one another, which was very nice. Hilda brought her own bed. It was a bed frame and a blow up mattress all in one bag. Lisa slept in the room with the pull-down bed, Diane and Tom in the guest room, and of course Ace and I used the master bedroom.. Oh, yes, Calliope took over the den couch.