Survived Hurricane Charley *LINK*

Re: Survived Hurricane Charley

William R. Duffield on the Cohansey

>What a mess! It looks like Charley almost took your roof away completely! I'm at least glad to hear that you and your family are OK. Have you submitted the sighting photo to Ellis, yet?

Think I'll stick with...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Earthquakes! What a mess, looks like a lot of work ahead cleaning up and rebuilding. Glad to hear everybodies O.K. The best of luck to you.

Dang Mike

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>I looked at only a few of the pictures and saw enough to turn my stomach. Musta' been some very hairy moments indeed during the blow what with all the sounds of the storm itself plus the sounds of your home being blown to bits. Man, that's terrible, just terrible. You have such a lovly home, it's a shame this has happened.

Got any expert opinions on weather or not it is salvagable yet?

Do you have everything now? Water? Electricity? etc, etc?

Offer still stands Bro, if you need a hand give a shout, tho it can only be on the weekends now as I return to school on Monday the 30th. I've got a stong back and a weak mind and work dirt cheap---Free.

Hopefully they've killed the down power lines in the backyard by now eh?

Ahhhhhhhhhhh well, the bright side is that the family is all alright, and all those cats are probably gone now too eh? ;~)

Todd O.

Re: Dang Mike

mfitterling

>Hi Todd. No, the cats are still here! Dang!

It was pretty scary. We saw the cement column caps lift off the brick bases and knew that it was going to go then. Ran back in the bedroom and threw a mattress over the kids. When we came back out the roof was in the back yard, along with a couple of those concrete caps! Those suckers are heavy! Looking at the house roof, it appears the veranda roof barely touched it on its way. Must have been a sight to see that stuff 50 feet in the air with the columns, porch swing, etc. all dangling under it and flying. Half of it made it as far as the shop.

Engineer is supposed to come today and check things. The front wall may have to be rebuilt; all the windows and door on that wall are stuck; only way to close the front door is to kick it, hard. Something is askew. If they have to rebuild it we will be out of the house for a while.

You know, it seems like as soon as we start to make some progress getting back on our feet something like this happens! On top of it, Andrea's car decided to die and mine had to go to the shop. FEMA is here, but all they seem to be able to offer atre loans; that's all we need--another loan.

On a high note, the shop is fine and completely usable and I got a large cabinet job from the church I built the library shelves for, which will help out.

Appreciate the offer of help. I might take you up on it as I am stuck in the house now working and watching kids and can't get outside to work until the weekend. I'll let you know; thanks.

Now, after all this is over I think it calls for a party for all the Florida Wood Centralians. I would like to host, if someone wants to organize. It will probably have to be mid-September or later.

Cheers!

Weekend

mfitterling

>Hi Todd. It looks like I will be able to pretty much finish up this weekend, thanks to my neighbor, who cut up a bunch of stuff I was going to have to do. So I probably won't need the help this weekend. Thanks for your offer; it is a long trip for you and it looks like it is doable by myself.

Re: Weekend

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>OK Mike that's fine. glad that things are going well and that you've got some good neighbors and friends to help you out. Speaking of which, how'd they all fair?

Offer still stands.

Todd O.

Re: Weekend

mfitterling

>Pretty much everyone in Lake Wales had some damage. For most it was a tree down and crushing their cars. My family fared well; we had the worst damage of all, brother lost his power stack and had broken windows, M&D had very little damamge, couple trees and in-laws pretty much the same. Most of the nieghbors had roof damamge and my friend a couple doors down had his chimney blown onto the roof of his beautiful log sided craftsman-style bungalow, complete loss of fireplace and entire roof had to be tarped.

Anyone with exposed areas to the east, like us with the ballfields across the street, had the worst damamge. On my parents' lake, those facing east on the lakefront got hit hard with some complete losses. My parents were lucky, they are only one house in from the lake and are on the west side but had very little damage.

Cheers,

Mike

BRACE YOURSELF!

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Ther 72-hour projection is for hurricane Frances to hit the coast at Jupiter.

Glad to hear that you made it through the first hit ok. Do not over-exert yourself with the cleanup (DAMHIKT).

Re: BRACE YOURSELF!

mfitterling

>Hi Don. Thanks. We can't take another hit. Things are worse than we thought at first and all the front wall of the house will probably have to be rebuilt. Part of the veranda roof is still dangling up there and it won't take a cat 4 to take the rest of it. Worse of all ;) my shop is now leaking! Good thing at least is I found someone who can supply the heart-pine to rebuild everything (they also sell heart-pine lumber, Goodwin Lumber in Micanopy).

We are debating where to go, where to go. Looks like soutwest might be the best bet if it does head straight for us. Latest tracks send it more north, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. Your never know with these things, though, so you take care, too.