After doing all that we could - we got the heck out of dodge. Only to receive a phone call from our moving truck. The driver stated that he had just arrived in Cape Coral and wanted to deliver the goods. I told him that we had evacuated and that he should do the same. He said that he would and we agreed to reschedule the delivery after the storm.
As the storm was making landfall we got a call from Jeff's parents. The neighbors had called them to tell them that the large tree in the front yard had already fallen down and that it looked like it went through the front window. We were both imaging the worst as this storm had barely even started.....
We went out to dinner that night at Bucca di Beppo and tried not to think about the storm. But how could we when Fort Lauderdale was starting to feel the effects of the storm too? It didn't help that when we told the waitress our situation she announced to the entire restaurant, "Hey everybody, this is Jeff and April and their house got trashed by hurricane Charley." Everyone laughed and cheered. Needless to say that waitress got tipped with about $0.83 in spare change.
The next morning we got up and headed back to Cape Coral. It was reassuring to see a caravan of Florida Power and Light trucks heading the same way. We stopped in Naples to hit a Home Depot for supplies. We were surprised by the damage we found that far south. Palm trees snapped in half like toothpicks. Luckily we also thought to pick up water, gas and cash before heading into the disaster area.
Upon returning to Cape Coral we found that the power was out, tons of trees were knocked down, all kinds of debris were laying in the street and almost every street sign had gone missing. We were pleasantly surprised when we got to the house, because although the huge tree was down in the front yard - it had not blown in the front window! We did find our mailbox down the street and some of the gutters had been torn down, but the interior was untouched.
More good luck - our house was on the same power grid as the fire station down the street, so we were only without power for a few hours. Our poor friends only a mile away were out of power for almost a week. Now for the bad luck.
Our moving truck had not evacuated far, in fact he had gone up to Punta Gorda which is pretty much the exact spot that the hurricane had made landfall. We got a call from him stating that the truck had been knocked over in the storm and that he would be by to drop off our stuff the next day. He said to expect some water damage and broken glass - which is exactly what we got. Overall though we came out of the situation pretty well. There were a lot of people who lost their homes and businesses, a few even lost their lives.
And that was just the start of a few very active hurricane seasons.
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