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Hurricane Charley Category 3 145 mph!!!
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Posted by: mellie73
Please pray for protection for Mary and her family and for my brother, David, and his family, and all who live in Florida and for those on the east coast- it will be hitting us tomorrow sometime.
My brother is in Orlando- they are getting hammered right now and I can't reach my brother!!! Please pray!
Here's the latest on Hurricane Charley- upgraded to a Cat. 4 in just 90 minutes!!! 
Aug. 13: MSNBC-TV weatherman Sean McLaughlin discusses Hurricane Charley soon after it was upgraded to a Category 4 storm.
MSNBC
Charley builds
to 145 mph winds, hits Florida coast
Updated: 4:30 p.m. ET Aug. 13, 2004TAMPA, Fla. - Hurricane Charley made landfall at Sanibel Island, Fla., late Friday afternoon, packing winds of 145 mph after being upgraded to a Category 4 storm, which can cause severe damage and flood coastal areas with 18-foot storm surges.
Forecasters feared a potentially devastating storm surge of up to 20 feet that could submerge miles of coastline. The surge “is going to be the main killer,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “This is the nightmare scenario that we’ve been talking about for years.”
Inland areas were likely to get “clobbered,” as well, Mayfield told NBC affiliate WBBH-TV of Fort Myers.
The storm had been expected to make landfall near Tampa, 120 miles to the north, but it shifted course at midday and brushed low-lying islands that have become popular retirement and tourist destinations. As many as 5,000 customers were reported to be without electric power in the Sarasota area.
Fort Myers itself was hit by 60 mph winds, storm surges and heavy rain before the storm veered slightly north and hit land at 3:50 p.m., pounding nearby Sanibel Island with a wall of water expected to exceed 10 feet. It hit the mainland near Charlotte Harbor about 4:15 p.m.
“We are ground zero for Hurricane Charley," said Wayne Sallade, director of emergency management in Charlotte County.
Many streets were deserted, and even the Charlotte County emergency operation center was evacuated. Palm fronds waved frantically in the wind, and offshore the gulf churned like water in a washing machine.
On Fort Myers Beach, seawater swamped the barrier island.
“We're going under,” said Lucy Hunter, the hotel operator at the Pink Shell Beach Resort and Spa. “When the ocean decides to meet my bay, that’s a lot of water. It’s already in my pool.”
Rapidly developing storm
Charley was upgraded from Category 2 to Category 4 within just 90 minutes Friday. Only Category 5 storms, with winds greater than 155 mph and capable of causing catastrophic damage, are higher on the scale used by the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane-force winds extended outward 30 miles from the eye of the storm.
Florida officials had urged about 2 million people to evacuate coastal areas and avoid the path of a storm that could then sweep through central Florida with hurricane-force winds.
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WFLA-TV of Miami reports on Hurricane Charley.
In Tampa, many streets were deserted Friday as workers were told to stay home when forecasters thought the city would bear the brunt of the storm.
But by late Friday afternoon, forecasters said, anyone who had not yet evacuated was too late.
“This is a very dangerous hurricane,” Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, told MSNBC-TV. “Final preparations should be complete at this time.”
Charley was expected to head through central Florida with hurricane-force winds for up to 12 hours, Rappaport said. Forecasters said the storm could strike land again Saturday night as a tropical storm near Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Hurricane warnings were posted along Florida’s west coast and along the Atlantic Coast from Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral, to the South Santee River in South Carolina. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley declared states of emergency, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford asked for voluntary evacuations of low-lying areas.
Earlier, as it blew through the Caribbean, Charley had been blamed for at least four deaths, three in Cuba and one in Jamaica.
$15 billion in losses feared
Charley was expected to be the worst storm in the Tampa area since a 1921 hurricane.
Bush said it could cause more than $15 billion in losses on its predicted track. Hurricane Andrew, the costliest hurricane to hit the United States, caused about $25 billion in damage when it passed through the Miami area in August 1992.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, the major theme park closest to the storm’s path, did not open Friday, and workers were posted outside to turn guests away. In Orlando, about 80 miles inland, Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando planned to close in the early afternoon.
The National Football League preseason game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Cincinnati Bengals scheduled for Saturday evening was postponed, and the White House canceled first lady Laura Bush’s trip to Florida early next week.
NOAA
Hurricane Charley is seen in a satellite image from Friday morning.
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Florida’s southwest coast was expected to see the worst of Charley, with heavy rain and possibly tornadoes. About 6.5 million of Florida’s 17 million residents were in its projected path, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.
“This is a very deadly storm that’s approaching our beloved state,” said Bush, who also asked his brother, President Bush, to consider declaring a federal state of emergency.
About 1.9 million people were told to evacuate, said Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman at the state emergency management center, who estimated that 1.1 million to 1.5 million people complied.
Most were in the counties of Hillsborough, which includes Tampa, and Pinellas, a peninsula that includes St. Petersburg. All residents of MacDill Air Force Base, on another peninsula in Tampa Bay, were ordered out, with only essential personnel remaining. MacDill is home to U.S. Central Command, the nerve center of the war in Iraq.
Gary Vickers, Pinellas’ emergency management chief, told people in evacuation zones that there would be “a period of time where if you stay behind and you change your mind and you want to be rescued, no one can help you.”
“We aren’t going to go out on a suicide mission,” he said.
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Exodus from the coast
Heavy traffic flowed Thursday afternoon away from the coast near Tampa in Florida’s biggest evacuation request since 1999, when Hurricane Floyd prompted an order for a record 1.3 million people to evacuate the state's east coast.
Local storm coverage
• WBBH-TV, Fort Myers
• WFLA-TV and The Tampa Tribune
• WTVJ-TV, Miami
• WJHG-TV, Panama City
• WRC-TV, Washington
Many residents tried to prepare for the worst, buying plywood to board up homes and stocking up on water, canned food and batteries to ride out Charley.
Beth Ciombor of Sarasota was at a Home Depot on Thursday loading two sheets of plywood onto the top of her minivan while her 2-year-old son watched.
“It’s very threatening,” Ciombor said. “I’m on the verge of tears. It’s so frightening.”
Power companies said they were mobilizing thousands of workers to prepare for widespread power failures, and out-of-state crews were being readied to rush to Florida.
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Bonnie tornado kills three
The hurricane arrived a day after Tropical Storm Bonnie came ashore in the Florida Panhandle and quickly moved north. Three people, including a child, were killed and 29 others were injured Friday when a tornado hit a North Carolina trailer park.
Hurricane guide
• Hurricane facts and figures
• Wind-proofing your property
• Hurricane health and safety
• Worst U.S. hurricanes
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Charley could move northward, bringing heavy rain to the mid-Atlantic. Across the rest of the East, the remnants of Bonnie were expected to stretch from Florida to northern New York.
The storms disrupted air travel and forced ships to change their routes in Florida, which has the world’s busiest cruise ship ports.
Carnival Cruise Lines reshuffled the ports of call for several ships to avoid the storms, and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. was doing the same, officials said.
Three dead in Cuba
Overnight, Charley packed winds of 105 mph and a 10- to 14-foot storm surge when it hit Cuba’s southwestern coast near the fishing village of Guanimar. NBC’s Mark Potter reported from Havana that three people were killed.
The storm knocked down coconut trees and stripped off roofs of coastal houses, people in nearby Batabano said.
“The gusts smashed windows and doors and lifted off the roof of a shelter,” said a local official in San Antonio de los Banos, a town in the storm’s path 22 miles south of Havana.
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• Charley blows over Cuba
Aug. 13: NBC’s Mark Potter reports from Havana, Cuba, after Hurricane Charley passed through.
MSNBC
Preliminary reports from Cuba indicate that peak winds of near 124 mph were measured just west of Havana, near the eye of the hurricane.
The hurricane crossed Cuba at its narrowest point, losing some intensity. The capital city and its province endured the onslaught in total darkness, as authorities cut off power to avoid electrical accidents.
In outlying rural areas, there were worries over crop losses; farmers were being advised to harvest what they could before the storm struck, Potter reported.
Wednesday, Jamaican authorities said one person was killed there as Charley swept south of the island. The man drowned while trying to rescue a group of people from floodwaters.
Posted by: akabezalel
Father, Creator, You are the God of the Wind and the Sea and I ask you now to put a sudden and complete end to Hurricane Charlie. Do not allow any to be injured or killed by this storm. Please keep property damage to an absolute minimum. Speak to the wind and water and say "Peace, be still". And it will happen! Lord I thank You for Your Mercy and Grace to cover the east coast with Your hand and bring them safe to Your side. In the Name of Jesus! AMEN!
Posted by: mellie73
Thank you Carol! God bless!
Posted by: flowerchild
Father, in the name of your son Jesus Christ, I pray that you will protect everyone in the path of this horrible hurricane. South Florida had a devastating hurricane in 1992 (Andrew). Please keep everyone out of harms way. Give them strength, peace and the knowledge that you are our Sheperd ad will never leave us alone. Father, please, protect all those that will experience this first hand. In Jesus' name. amen!
Posted by: StarChilde
Dear God... You are the One who can still this storm... I ask for Your mighty Hand in and through this storm. Keep your Almighty Wings over those in the path of this, let them rejoice in the shadow of Your protection.In Jesus Christ's Name I ask & pray~amen