Charley's first stop: North Captiva

AL CAPONE WAS ONCE A GLEAM IN HIS mother's eye. And the Big Bad Wolf was surely an innocent pup at one time. Hurricane Charley is no different.

Leaving his mark: Charley blazed across this stretch of beach on North Captiva Island, splitting it in half.

"A tropical wave emerged from western Africa on Aug. 4," begins the National Weather Service's report benignly enough.

But by the time Charley made its first direct hit in North America, on North Captiva Island — known as Upper Captiva, depending on who you talk to — it had developed into something powerful enough to rip the back doors off June and Hart Kelly's home and blow out 10 or 11 of their windows, Mr. Kelly remembered, from the inside out.

The hurricane also defied weather forecasters, including the National Weather Service, by making a sudden change of course that left 27 residents of the small barrier island stranded, according to reports from the fire department. A few hours before Charley's eye wall slammed into the northern edge of the island, Upper Captiva Fire Chief Richard Pepper's call to the United States Coast Guard, requesting an emergency evacuation, was denied.

COURTESY CITY OF PUNTA GORDA Remembering the disaster: The Turner Agri- Civic Center in Arcadia, sweeping palm trees, President Bush speaks with residents and wreckage from Punta Gorda all were sights that may refresh your memory of Charley.

"In a way it was good that he stayed," said Mr. Kelly's wife, June Kelly. She is an airline flight attendent who was at work on the day of the storm. "It did help save some personal stuff."

Mr. Kelly, 60, is a pilot for United Airlines. He had boarded up his house and prepared for "some gusty winds and rain" that news reports indicated earlier that morning.

"When it was too late to get off the island they said 'whoops, get off the island,'" Mr. Kelly said.

Fire Chief Pepper was also caught off guard. Tourists on the island, which is not connected to the mainland by a bridge, had already been evacuated in preparation for what was assumed to be a relatively minor storm. At 9:30 a.m., a conference call with Lee County Emergency Management confirmed that Charley would create 68 MPH sustained winds that afternoon, and gusts were not expected to be any faster than that.

"These were just homeowners that were out here," Chief Pepper said.

Battening down

Chief Pepper kept a detailed log of the storm and its aftermath that documents the events as they unfolded on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004.

By 9:30 a.m., he said, "They were still under the impression that (Charley) would pass 100 miles to the west of us."

At 10:30 a.m., Chief Pepper began assisting residents to secure and board houses, and make sure all tourists were off the island. They finished around 11 a.m. "That's when we noticed the storm had changed," he said. "We were just looking at the television and we realized it looked a lot closer to us than was originally thought. At that time everybody had secured their vessels. We had already pulled out the fireboat. So we were basically trapped with no way out."

By 1 p.m., the department's request for an emergency evacuation of Upper Captiva from the U.S. Coast Guard was denied. "We went back around to the rest of the folks (door to door) and told them, 'this is the situation,'" Chief Pepper said, "and if they felt safer at the station, to join us there."

At 1:20 p.m., the island lost power.

At 1:40 p.m., Chief Pepper was waiting out the hurricane with 12 Upper Captiva residents at the fire station.

They watched news reports on a television powered by a small generator, which told them Charley had changed direction and would likely bring devastation as a Category 4 storm. "It was quite apparent that it was coming right into Southwest Florida at that time," Chief Pepper said.

The fire station was built to withstand 150 mile-per-hour winds and a 17-foot flood. As it turned out, sustained winds over the island that day reached at least 146 miles per hour, with gusts up to 175 miles per hour. The winds increased in intensity until 3:45 p.m. when the eye wall of the hurricane — containing the most violent turbulence — ripped and roared into Upper Captiva.

The fire building held together. Mr. Kelly was hunkered down in his home with a worker on the island named Pepe, who needed a place to stay. Eye of the storm

And then quiet. A river of gulf water, about three or four feet high, flowed outside the fire station. For the moment, the view from the windows was clear.

"It was just this eerie yellow glow," Chief Pepper said. "No wind, but you could just hear the roar of the storm around you…

"It only took about 10 minutes (for the eye of the storm to pass over) and right as the wind started picking up again, that's when we heard a banging on the door."

Upper Captiva resident Scott Gilbert had arrived with his cat. The frightened animal had attached itself securely to Mr. Gilbert's head.

"He bailed out of his house right as the eye started to come over," Chief Pepper said. "It was only a half-mile walk from his house to the station, but he had to crawl under trees and really make an effort to get here. So he made it in. The cat was obviously scared and its claws were just really imbedded into his face."

While Mr. Gilbert was on his way to the fire station with the cat, Mr. Kelly and Pepe emerged from the house to take a look around. By that point, his home had taken a severe beating.

"The wind had gotten inside the house so the windows started popping from the inside out," Mr. Kelly said. "It started popping out about 10 or 11 windows. When it did that it started vacuuming the house. In the master bedroom, it took all the drapes off the walls, the lamps off the tables, every one of my wife's pictures, the sheets, the pillowcases, everything gone. The rain started getting in the roof and then the drywall starts (coming off). That all happened in about 45 minutes."

Other homeowners in the area, including Sandy Stilwell, who was staying at her house on Captiva Island directly south of North Captiva with her son and a few other people, described a similar situation. "One of the bedroom windows popped, and there was actually a tree in my bedroom," she said. Ms. Stilwell went into the room with plywood and the wind conveniently sucked it right into place, covering the hole.

And then quiet.

"It got really quiet and we went out and peeked outside," Mr. Kelly said. "It was very clear and calm, kind of hazy. There were a bunch of birds flying in the eye."

The wind came again from the other direction, but this time, he and others recall, not as hard. The reversal of winds allowed the water that had been held back to flow in over the island, a surge of about 6 feet. Mr. Kelly and Pepe went into a bedroom on the opposite side of the house to avoid the brunt of the storm's second half.

"We were looking out the windows of the other bedroom," he said, "Just a wall of water comes from the Gulf (of Mexico) side and you could see garbage cans and timber and lumber being pushed along on this tidal wave and it came up to about three feet on the air strip. By the next day most of the flooding had gone away. It was really a unique, remarkable situation to witness it."

At 5:20 p.m., Chief Pepper came out and people began to survey the damage.

"We all came out of our holes in the afternoon and starting looking at the damage and, brother, there was a lot of damage," Mr. Kelly said.

No one on Upper Captiva was killed, but some residents suffered cuts after their sliding glass door blew in, ending a hurricane party. Most of the homes and businesses on the island were severely damaged and many were destroyed. The roads were covered in debris and downed power lines. The government was slow to respond, so residents were left without utilities for more than a month.

"The afterword's was the hard part," Mr. Kelly said. "Forty-seven days with no power. Most everybody went out and got small generators and went back to trying to live."

Then and now

Although Pepe is no longer around — he is said to have moved back to Miami — Chief Pepper said he and others were a huge help after the storm. Mr. Kelly took his private airplane to fly in generators and extra gasoline. Ray Torres, another Upper Captiva resident, also flew in supplies.

Chief Pepper estimates Upper Captiva is 98 percent recovered now, five years later.

"I think the last two houses are finally being renovated," he said.

In some ways, the residents on Upper Captiva were lucky with Charley. Because it was compact and fast-moving and it traveled over the island at 18 miles per hour — residents experienced a relatively light storm surge.

"That's the saving grace. That the storm was moving so fast," Chief Pepper said. "It was really fast, very compact. It was less than an hour and half by the time the heavy winds started and ended."

Still, it tore a quarter-mile wide inlet in the island at its narrowest point. Chief Pepper said that hole has filled in now, and new trees have begun to grow there.

Mr. Kelly at times remembers Charley with a sense of awe. He has lived on the island for 11 years and grew up in Miami where he experienced Hurricane Andrew, but nothing quite like this direct hit.

"It was an exciting day and something we'll never forget," said Mr. Kelly, "but I hope we don't have to do it again."

Most people on Upper Captiva probably feel the same.