Hurricane Charley Cleanup

17-20 August 2004

On Friday the Thirteenth, August of 2004, Hurricane Charley went to town in Port Charlotte, Florida. Tuesday of the next week, right after getting back from a summer session at Virginia Tech (finals were on Friday and Saturday), I got into the car with Dad and we headed down to Port Charlotte to help Grandfather Boyle pick up the pieces. The ride was forever long (Florida is a bleeding long state. Its awful to be on a such a straight road with the certain knowledge that even if you did manage to do 100mph without getting caught by a trooper, you STILL WOULDN'T GET ANYWHERE in the next hour). Finally we were within shouting distance, and we noticed something very strange - 10 miles away, there were no signs of any storm. Five miles away we started seeing signs broken, and one mile away we saw this:

And from there on the signs of the destruction that had occurred were quite evident. Most of the stop lights were out at the intersections, and as you can see, the stop signs had not fared too much better:

After that the pictures I took get jumbled together - there were so many broken things to look at. So here is a medly of several pictures, from the funny signs people posted to show they had not lost their sense of humor, to the tragic shots of what was left of our boats in the backyard (Notice anything missing? Like maybe the masts? Oh, and the big motor boat is not ours; I just thought it was a telling picture).

The true purpose for traveling down to Port Charlotte was to help Grandfather fix the roof. Here are some pictures that show the finished product. It was mostly leak-free, having been but together with 4 by 8 sheets of half inch plywood, plastic sheeting, tar paper, and tar cement which had the consistency of really good brownie mix. Dinosaur tarpit brownies, even.

Perhaps the saddest moment was discovering that the fabled grapefruit tree had been uprooted. Lacking time to right the ancient tree we were forced to leave it languishing there. Aunt Cynthia, for one, was inconsolable. This tree produced some wonderful grapefruit in its time. May it rest in peace(s).

Post Script: After we finished with the roof on Friday afternoon, Dad and I got back in the car and drove up to Virginia Tech to help Gary move into Pritchard Hall. But that is his story, so I will direct you to his website. When he tells me what the URL is.