Punta Gorda, Florida, looked as bad in person as it did in the pictures. Worse, in fact.

NBC had me on a plane to Florida from my base here in Dallas on Friday the 13th. My sound tech was Dale Hancock. NBC already had a number of crews on Florida's West Coast, where Hurricane Charley was going to hit, but Charley suddenly decided to upgrade itself from a Category 2 storm to one with a Category 4 rating. That's one number less than the most powerful rating of 5. In addition, it was suddenly going more East than predicted. The residents of Punta Gorda were initially told that a Cat. 2 storm would skirt by only to be told at the last minute that the storm was now a Cat. 4 and headed directly at them. Many people found it was too late to evacuate and chose to ride out the storm. This is why the death toll was so high.

At the time I was called in it was too late to go to Punta Gorda. We landed in Jacksonville, did a live-shot and spent the night. After another live-shot early the next morning we began to drive to Punta Gorda.

I stopped in Orlando to see Marty Stebbins and Dave Elliott. Actually, I stopped just to see Marty and was surprised that Dave was also there at WESH TV, Channel 2. Marty and I go 'way back to the early 70's when we both worked as reporters in Orlando television. Dave and I go back a little further to when we both worked at WLOF radio and WKIS radio in Orlando. That was around 1970.

On to Tampa on I-4. Nice plan except that traffic on I-4 was bumper-to-bumber and moving about 3MPH all the way to Tampa. Around Seaworld, we got off and took the back roads which turned out to be a lot faster despite the small towns and traffic lights. My recently acquired GPS receiver helped a great deal.

The problem is that we were tracing back along the course of the hurricane. Power was out everywhere. When we did hit spots of power, the lines for gasoline were enormous. We finally picked a line to get in only to find out after a while that the station had run out. We approached Punta Gorda down Highway 17 and it was massive destruction all the way. We shot tape along 17 and also in downtown Punta Gorda. What destruction! I've covered a lot of hurricanes, but the destruction in Punta Gorda was the worst I had ever witnessed for anything less than that caused by a tornado. Every building, without exception, suffered extensive damage. Some were completely collapsed. Of those that still stood, roofs were off and laying in the street. Debris everywhere. All the businesses and homes had been marked with red spray paint as to how the insurance companies rated their damage.

We shot our tape and made our way to Sarasota fifty miles to the north to overnight at a Best Western. At the first gas station off the highway in Sarasota was a line of cars and we were down to fumes. However, a few blocks further away from the highway revealed gas stations that were open with working pumps with no lines.

I hate staying at motels! People gathered along the walkway outside my ground-level door to talk loudly, laugh loudly, and just totally ignore that they are raising a rukus outside the bedchambers of people very, very tired from working the storm. Just as I fell asleep, someone started trying to force their way through my door. When I pulled the curtain aside from next to the door and asked "WHAT!?", the man outside said "Maintenance" and I said "I didn't call maintenance." He said "Sorry." and walked away. The next night was similar. Just as I was falling asleep, there was a loud knock on my door. Again I'm looking through the window and sayting "WHAT!?". A man with a beer in his hand said "Sorry, wrong room.". It was the kind of "Sorry" that is said without feeling. Just like the way the maintenance guy said it to me the night before. I told the story to Dale, who had a room a few doors down from me, and he said the same guy knocked on his door. Apparantly, the guy was just looking for someone but didn't know what room that friend was in. He had no problem simply waking everyone until he found his friend.

Sunday was a long day in Punta Gorda doing live-shots. It was a very, very hot day mixed with that Florida humidity. Did I mention it was hot? Yes, it was HOT! You-Could-Fry-An-Egg-On-The-Sidewalk kind of hot!

Monday we were released to make our way back to Dallas. Dale got us first-class seats on American and it was a nice trip back.

End of story.