Hurricane Charley

On Friday, August 13th, 2004, a category 4 hurricane named Charley made landfall with the Southwest coast of Florida near Punta Gorda, and proceeded to cut a swath of destruction through the Central Florida area. The eye of the storm reached Orlando at approximately 8:30 PM.

As luck would have it, we were in New York City that weekend, celebrating a family birthday. When we returned to our home on Sunday the 15th, we found that a large and valued oak tree had blown down in the back yard, narrowly missing the house, clipping the garage, and demolishing a shed and fencing, and also snapping our power lines off at the riser.

Our power was out for a full week, and the tree was chopped up an removed on the Friday following the storm; so, our recovery is well under way. The debris from the storm forms a 4' high barrier all along our street, in front of just about every house, and our street is typical of the many Orlando neighborhoods that were damaged the worst.