My mom’s parents, Harold and Arlene Ward, live in a nursing home in Fort Meyers, Florida — currently hurricane central.
Category 4 Hurricane Charley is working its way toward Orlando and Daytona Beach after whipping through west-central Florida on Friday, and its 145 mph winds and 10-foot wall of water is causing many people to evacuate.
There are reports of damage in Cape Coral, Sanibel Island and North Fort Myers.
[…]
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Hurricane Charley may be providing “the nightmare scenario that we’ve been talking about for years,” adding it’s “going to be bad — real bad.”
[…]
Charley made landfall at 3:45 p.m. EDT on the barrier islands between Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, and about 160 miles southeast of the Tampa Bay area that includes Tampa and St. Petersburg. On Fort Myers Beach, sea water swamped the barrier island. A hotel operator described her resort as “going under.” She and her husband braced themselves, along with six hotel employees, in the center of the Pink Shell Beach Resort.
Almost 2 million tourists and residents were told to evacuate.
Yesterday, Mom forwarded on an e-mail from her Aunt Roberta (Grandma’s sister, if I’m remembering the family tree correctly…if not, mom or dad can correct me)…
About l0:00 o’clock Arline called and asked I e-mail you to let you know they have been told they will probably –even today–have to go to the hurricane shelter. They do not know too many particulars except they will be looked after and helped whenever they need attention. They were told to take clothes for two days. As you can guess Arline isnot too thrilled with the idea! Gotta go. Roberta
Prayers, kind thoughts, or good mojo of whatever sort are, of course, appreciated.
Another e-mail from mom that I just found in my inbox:
I just called and Mom & Dad must still be in the garage/shelter (It’s 8:25 there now). I left a message for them.
From the satellite photos and news articles it appears that the brunt of the storm hit Port Charlotte, a community about 35 miles north of Ft. Myers. All reports stated, though, that storm winds cut a swathe extending 35-40 miles on each side of the eye.
I’ll keep my eye on the progress and post again before I go to bed for the night.
I’ll check my e-mail again before I head out of work tonight.
Unfortunately, after that I won’t be able to check back in until sometime Monday (at the latest), as Prairie and I are heading down to Woodland to visit her mom and sister and jaunt across the river to Portland to visit OMSI. I’ll see if I can grab a moment at a computer to check in at some point, though.
In the meantime, have a good weekend, everyone.
Update: G-and-G are back at Shell Point Village, safe and (mostly) sound. Here’s Mom again…
I just got off the phone with Mom. Hooray! The storm watch in the shelter is over. They got home about 9:00 pm Friday.
The hurricane made landfall at Port Charlotte, about 35 miles north of Ft. Myers, which was a bit of a surprise since the weather folks had said for hours and hours that it would hit at Ft. Myers.
The saga:
They were awakened at midnight (Thurs – Fri) and told to be ready to go at 2 a.m. It took another hour before it was their turn, so they left about 3 a.m. with their pillows and blankets. They rode a bus. Mom was worried about getting in and out, but since she’s home again, she must have been able to do so.
The shelter is a parking garage when not in use as a hurricane shelter. She said there was no feeling of being in a storm at all. The overriding feeling was of being in such a crowd of people. The cots were set up with barely room to walk between the rows. They had three meals served Friday. Mom lauded the planning and organization of the whole transfer and assistance while in the shelter.
The first worry was getting into the bus. The second worry was getting to & from whatever the bathroom facilities were. Mom seems also to have negotiated through that problem.
Dad, though, didn’t do as well. He fell [a couple of times, and when they got back home, was] taken to the Pavilion (the hospital). The nursing staff speculated the fall was a result of dehydration. Mom can’t maneuver sufficiently to have gone to the Pavilion, so she will call tomorrow to find out the actual diagnosis and treatment.
It was dark at the time they were taken back to King’s Crown, so she had no idea what damage had occurred. The Village is without electricity (as is most of southern Florida), but King’s Crown has a generator so there are lights and elevators and whatever else needs power.
The good news is they coped with the shelter experience; the bad news is dad’s at the Pavilion.
I’m thankful, along with Mom, for the wonderful planning of emergency services for Shell Point, and for their safety without having to evacuate their little island.
Now I’m going to eat pizza and watch Olympics.
I’m glad they’re both pretty much safe and sound — with any luck, Grampa’s fall was just a little dehydration, and he’ll be back up and about once he gets a few more fluids in his system.
In any case, it appears that all their excitement is over with. Time for me to shut this down and head out for my weekend adventures. Be back sometime Sunday night…