Guide's Note: Robert Bowden is a member of our About Cars test team. He lives in Port Charlotte, Florida, which was hit hardest by Hurricane Charley. Robert sent this brief note to a few good friends, revealing just how devasting a big storm can be:
It was a rare Category 4 storm and I watched it destroy the world around me, my nose pressed against a bedroom window on the side of the house opposite those 145 mph winds (gusting to 190). I lost my landscaping - old oaks and pine trees mostly - and some of my roof. But at least my home is standing. Most houses here are totalled. Complete losses. People have nothing left. Businesses are destroyed, so there are no old jobs to go back to. The new ones are mop-up jobs, like working on roofs in 95-degree heat.
At my house, I still have no power, no phone, no cable connection. No air conditioning, no hot water for showers, no connectivity to the Internet. All of our cellphones are spotty at best, since some relay towers blew down. At work, we're powering the building and newspaper presses from a semi-size generator that drinks 1,100 gallons of gas a day. But at least it's cool and the computers are connected to the Net.
I went up to my home loft where I do Car Judge work and powered up the computer from a generator. The temperature was 91.6 degrees and I thought I might fry the computer if I kept it running, so I turned it off. It's not power lines that are down; it's power poles! The electrical companies say they need to rebuild the entire grid. So I'm possibly facing the rest of summer without air conditioning or an Internet connection. We here in Charlotte heard a rumor that the Olympics are happening somewhere.
I've been working long days without a break for the past week, so I'm taking tomorrow off to join some guys in helping clear my yard. I managed a path to my front door, but the backyard is a tangle of broken trees. My dog is very confused. Pees everywhere.
A few words on how bad things are: All three hospitals in the county had terrible damage and only one remained operative; seven fire stations were put out of service from collapsed roofs; the main high school is condemned and must be demolished; traffic signals remain out and we are supposed to have four-way stops at each intersection... but sadly, people sometimes forget; three were killed a few nights ago at an intersection police had left open after directing traffic all day.
We have a dusk-to-dawn curfew that is rigidly enforced, so forget eating out after 7 PM at the few restaurants still open with generators in place; plan on an hour in line to get a McDonald's burger, longer for 10 gallons of gas (the limit); my favorite barbecue place collapsed completely, my barbershop's roof blew away and I need a haircut; and my wife had a dentist's appointment that took a year to get but was cancelled because the dentist couldn't, or wouldn't, come to his intact office.
As a local paper, however, we have to present a happy face. Optimism. A better tomorrow.
