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On battery power on my laptop. Phone line still good. Eyewall missed at last second by 15 miles. Was headed for us up to that point. Estimate we took 110-140mph winds.

Island vegetation absolutely devastated. Large 3 foot-thick australian pines snapped like matchsticks. 25-50% tree loss. Island like a war zone. National Guard with machine guns and rangers on ATV's.

No sewer, electric, water. Got free ice and cases of bottled water from FEMA. Have cooler stocked.

Houses amazingly intact. Saw many houses that had large canopy pines and other trees completely leveled on all sides sitting in the middle without a scratch. Saw much smashing of porches and decks. Only 1 roof gone here.

Surge was unusually low. Saw sand wash under my garage door, but surge ended at our street in front. Estimate 3 foot surge came 300 yards inland.

Lots of drudgery work on constant schedule. Managed to get bed into dormer near screened window to sleep. House stuffy and hot due to most storm shutters being electric. Can just get by with head next to window.

Lots of birds and wildlife all over. They are around in unusual numbers and species we don't see in neighborhood.

People leave at night and come back the next day. No utilities is nothing to me. Amazingly the clubhouse and 15 houses in our neighborhood NEVER LOST POWER during a category 4 hurricane. It stopped short 4 houses up from us.

Clubhouse still powered. Can recharge batteries there! Hot, sticky and humid. 2 large-crown trees came down lengthwise in our driveway. The rangers took out the one closest to the street to allow us to park in the driveway.

We have some siding missing due to negative pressure on the lee sides. Most damage minor. 1/4 screened porch ripped away and gone with the wind. Neighbor lost 1/2 their zinc. Inside sheetrock came down with insulation like a quagmire. Other neighbor had zero damage!

Several days of drudge work ahead. Getting up at dawn to save batteries. Woke up to bizarre DC-3 buzzing the treetops. Turned out to be mosquito control aircraft...


Causeway suffered no damage. Storm was very unusual due to August cold front and forward speed.

Wobbled around Sanibel at last momnent and corrected back into Upper Captiva where it cut the island in half forming a new channel. Houses were 2 miles north of there and were still standing for the most part. No houses in area cut into sea.

The fire station was the only building that survived undamaged. A man crawled to the station where they couldn't get the door open to let him in due to winds. Amazingly, no island deaths...

Tradewind, Thanks for the report. Glad things were not any worse then they were with your place.
I don't envy your situation.
I guess it will be awhile before the bird photography gets anywhere near normal on Sanibel. (Not high on the list compared to homes etc, but for those unfamilar, Sanibel is (was) world renown for being one of the premier birding spots in the states.) Best of luck to you with the recovery of your neighborhood. (So far this side has lucked out, our closest call was Andrew, but it was 70 miles south of here.)

There were Great Blue Herons in the pools in the yard when I got back. One was even perching on our neighbor's porch. They must have liked the fact that the people disappeared suddenly. Saw a Great Blue catch a bass this morning. I'm trying to figure out how they rode out the storm because the trees were obviously whipping like crazy.

We are getting back to normal and consider ourselves lucky. Most of the damage here is zinc peeled back and lanai's torn away. Small stuff like porch railings and patches of siding. The key was our sheet metal pyramidial roof!

We got power back Friday evening as well as water and toilet (Trust me we are glad for the toilet).

Took ride up towards Captiva yesterday and saw roof sucked off Saint Isabel church with major water damage inside. All radio and cell towers intact. As you progress up towards Captiva the damage becomes visibly greater. Oceanside Australian Pines took a real wack with 75%+ mortality or blow-down. I got turned around at National Guard checkpoint at Blind Pass Bridge to Captiva. Roof damage up there is 2 houses out of 3. Native trees show more damage up there like blown-down wheat.

I'm frustrated that some of our neighbors have peeled-back zinc that hasn't been covered for 9 days now. I heard we had rain last tuesday, but have had none since - which is unusual for August! They are up north for summer. The light damage they got will really get worse if they take water through that damage when the rains return.

We have to get a roof vent closed. The winds peeled the cover right back. I have towels jammed up into the hole and will try to jerry-rig some turkey pan aluminum as a temporary fix. We have two dormers that had the siding sucked off by the vacuum created by winds passing around the corner. Got to cover those before they leak in. Lucky we have had no rain since we got back.

Saw condo on beach that looked untouched until you walked by the entire roof hanging over one side like a cape. Other condo was undamaged except for giant shark bite out of one side of roof. Probably hit by propelled debris. We're going to have trouble getting contractors...

Thank God we have power and air conditioning because most are without. Saw people sitting on chairs under their houses up island. No power. We are one of few areas near the one main that survived the storm. Neighbor says we had 125mph sustained here. Looks about right. A slower storm with slighty higher winds would have really changed things. You can see we were on the brink of taking structural damage, but storm moved too fast and didn't have time to wear-down structures.

Saw photo of one condo on Captiva with wall off like open doll house.

Surge returning to sea created gully at end of boardwalk to beach.

Word from local contractor who rode out Charley that 35% of structures on Upper Captiva condemned. 200 people rode out hurricane on Sanibel without loss of life...

Truly a horrible scene for all that have had to endure.

Our Ice Storm last year in April reeked so little havoc in comparison to what this darned Charley did to so many wonderful people in Florida. Their dreams have been destroyed.

We thought we had it rough. Not one bit as hard as our Southern Neighbors.
My heat pours out to all of them.
Thanks for keeping us updated. We do care.

Tradewind, another good report. Your eye witness discription tells it better than the newspapers do. (Even with their pictures.) Hard to appreciate the magnitude of Charley until you actually lived through a blow like that. Hope the rain holds off til you get "patched" up. Best of luck.

Now power back off again! Sheesh, just when we were cruising. A mild thunderstorm knocked it out.

Had brainstorm. Will fit some plywood in the roof vent hole and seal it will injectable foam as a temporary patch.

Saw 4 foot alligator in our community pool with a dead rabbit in its jaws. The poor rabbit must have realized the pool was safe from alligators and used it for drinking. Once it became a dark algae pond filled with pollywogs the alligator moved in. The rabbit came for his usual drink and bam!

Hope power restores again. Clubhouse still has electricity...

My goodness, there is so much yet to do.

Darned electricity, poor bunny and watch out for HUGE mosquitoes with all the rain. Maybe you can train them to haul away gators

Life still stinks for many in Florida

Our other computer got blasted yesterday by a power surge and is down.

At least we have all the shutters open now with a mild seabreeze venting the house. Still hot though. Toilet and water are running. The clubhouse still has power, so we are using the small kitchenette over there until we get power restored.

I took a walk around the block and found the power pole that our circuit is on. You can see the breaker bar has popped between insulators on the feeder pole. It is extremely frustrating because all they have to do is reset that popped breaker and we would be cool again with electricity. For now we'll have to use the stove at the clubhouse with paper plates, so we aren't totally unlucky.


It is still the usual mayhem with power trucks and contractors buzzing around in the hot bright sun. We got 2/100th's of an inch last night, so the rain is still holding-off. Our neighbor's roof is still uncovered and the plywood is starting to peel back in spots. They're in trouble as far as increasing damage. Other neighbor's are showing up, but not many. Most are up north for summer.

In my free time I've had time to tour and take snapshots. The east end was not a haven, and I've seen 2 more roofs blown off including rafters and plywood. Many condos that look undamaged actually had their flat roof blown off and have it laying scattered downwind. These buildings took major water damage and you can see the rug materials in big piles in front next to the huge tree piles. The lighthouse on the east end took direct winds from the Gulf, so the jungle surrounding it is gone. It now stands out in clear view.

I saw vans of hired workers pouring into condos to do major cleaning up.



We need to get that breaker reset, but all you get is a robot voice when you call the power company...