Trinis living in Florida report losses as Hurricane Charley kills 15

PUNTA GORDA, Florida: Many Trinidadians living in Port Charlotte reported last night that they had lost  their properties when Hurricane Charley hit. Harvey Borris, TT’s Information Attache in Miami last night said that he had spoken to several Trinidadians, and while they were safe and out of harms way they had reported losses. He said he didn’t have details of their losses. Rescuers rummaged through a chaotic landscape of pulverized homes and twisted metal yesterday, racing to tally Hurricane Charley’s “significant loss of life” and help thousands left homeless by its vicious winds and rain. At least 15 people were confirmed dead. As a weakened Charley churned into the Carolinas and was downgraded to a tropical storm, newly sunny skies revealed its destruction in Florida, where emergency officials pronounced it the worst to wallop the state since Hurricane Andrew tore through in 1992. Twenty-six deaths were directly linked to Andrew, which caused $19.9 billion in damage.

“Our worst fears have come true,” said Governor Jeb Bush, who surveyed the devastation by helicopter. Florida officials predicted damage from the Category 4 storm could top $15 billion — as much as the earthquake in Northridge, California, in 1994. Ten deaths had been confirmed in Charlotte County, said Wayne Sallade, the county’s director of emergency management, but no exact death toll was available. “It’s Andrew all over again,” Sallade said. “We believe there’s significant loss of life, he said, adding later: “I would hope that it would be limited to dozens, if that.” He said “thousands upon thousands of people” lost their homes. Hundreds were unaccounted for in the county, which includes Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, the apparent hardest-hit areas. Extensive damage was also reported on exclusive Captiva Island, a narrow strip of sand west of Fort Myers.

“Where do we go now? What do we do?” said 69-year-old Barbara Seaman, standing by the shell of a demolished building in Punta Gorda’s Windmill Village Trailer Park. The storm and its 145-mph winds knocked out power to some 2 million homes and businesses as it crossed from the southwest coast at Punta Gorda to the Atlantic at Daytona Beach. Some 1.3 million people remained without power Saturday afternoon, emergency officials said. President Bush, the governor’s brother, declared Florida a federal disaster area and sent a mortuary team to help process bodies. The president planned a visit Sunday to survey damage, and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, in a statement, offered “heartfelt sympathies.” Florida is a key battleground state for the November election. The hurricane rapidly gained strength in the Gulf of Mexico after crossing Cuba and swinging around the Florida Keys as a more moderate Category 2 storm Friday morning.

An estimated 1.4 million people evacuated in anticipation. When it hit, the storm upended trucks, twisted traffic lights into unrecognisable shapes and lifted entire houses atop neighbours’ homes. Entire trailer parks were splintered to their foundations and dazed residents wandered around neighbourhoods, gathering miscellaneous belongings. At the Port Charlotte airport, small planes were stacked and snapped apart like toys cast off by an angry child. There were five confirmed storm-related deaths elsewhere in the state. Deputies were standing guard over some bodies because they were in areas not immediately accessible by ambulances. Earlier, Charley killed three people in Cuba and one in Jamaica. As recovery efforts began, Florida officials warned against price gouging and said violators would face heavy fines.