Charley devastated paper’s area
Christy Arnold, '99, worked at the Charlotte Sun (Fla.) from January 2000 to June 2005 as a reporter and editor. She began working as a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer in June 2005.By Christy Arnold
I lied.
Right there on CNN, I lied to the world. The question: “Are you scared?”
(Pause, as I remember my mother is watching the live coverage.)
“No.”
Minutes later, the interview ended and my office phone rang.
“You just lied on national television,” my mother said.
Yes, mother, I told a whopper of a lie.
Aug. 13, 2004
It was Friday the 13th, of course.
Hurricane Charley had been predicted to strike the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. For those of us in Charlotte County, Fla., which is about 100 miles south of Tampa, between Sarasota and Fort Myers, we were expecting some rain, some wind and maybe even a little storm surge.
Yet there still was a sense of doom in the air. Charley was about to strike somewhere. Whether it was 100 miles north or 100 miles south, a community was about to record its worst day in history. Some families were about to lose their homes. Some elderly residents were about to lose a lifetime of collectedgoods. And some were about to lose their lives. But not here — not in the Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte area.
Charley, however, had other plans.
During the late morning hours of Aug. 13, 2004, Charley made an unexpected turn to the east, putting us in the crosshairs. To make matters worse, the warm Gulf of Mexico waters fueled Charley and turned him into a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds.
With just a few hours before Charley was to make landfall, law enforcement and fire officials began evacuating residents in low-lying areas of Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor. A Category 4 hurricane not only delivers dangerous winds but it can bring with it a deadly storm surge.
Hurricanes carry what is essentially a wall of water ranging from a few feet to 20 or more. Most of the low-lying Charlotte County was at risk for the both the high winds and storm surge.
During that last interview with CNN, the ceiling tiles in our main office of the Charlotte Sun newspaper began bouncing a bit. The winds were howling, resembling the sound a descending set of cars on the Eagle roller coaster at Great America in Gurnee.
Shortly after the interview, we lost power at our office, located a few blocks north of the Peace River, which flows into the Charlotte Harbor and separates Punta Gorda (to the south) from Port Charlotte. Then we lost phones. About 20 of us rode out the hurricane in the office, along with my toy poodle, Lucky, and other staffers’ pets.
Despite the fact that Charley was supposed to hit Tampa, most of our office had been boarded up with hurricane shutters. After all, this was the closest a hurricane had come in years. In fact, the last major hurricane to strike southwest Florida was more than 40 years earlier — meaning the majority of residents had never experienced such a storm. The region has exploded in population since the Hurricane Donna hit just south of Charlotte County in 1960.
One of the only non-boarded areas of our office was the front entrance, giving the newsroom a front-seat view of the event that would change our lives and forever alter the landscape of Punta Gorda, Charlotte Harbor, Port Charlotte and the other towns in its path.
We watched Charley come to town. First, little debris such as leaves, trash and small branches traveled like traffic down the street. Larger branches followed, as did our company sign and the roof across the street. That’s when I grabbed my 6-pound dog and went with others to an interior office where we listened to Charley’s pounding and a squeaky radio which was carrying our media partner’s television broadcasts out of Fort Myers.
Through it all and for the next several nights, the beeps from dying computers accented the absolute devastation left.
As the winds died down, we emerged from the office and got our first glimpses at the total destruction: uprooted trees, damaged vehicles and splintered buildings. City Hall was toppled. The second floor of a bakery was missing. The glass windows of a professional building were shattered. Hospitals were damaged. The Emergency Operations Center, which houses all the county’s leaders during disasters, lost its roof. The brand-new city public safety building also lost its roof. Schools were totaled and closed forever. And the trees that survived were stripped of their foliage, lookinglike northern trees in winter.
We had been kicked in the gut. The worst hurricane to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew rolled through our town. Having never been through a natural disaster or war, I had never seen such horror and such dazed looks in everyone’s eyes. One of the many National Guardsmen who descended on Charlotte County to help keep order and give out supplies told me he hadn’t seen such heavy damage since he was in Baghdad.
There was no discussion as to whether the Charlotte Sun, about 35,000 circulation, would print the next day’s newspaper. The Sun had never missed an edition and Charley wasn’t going to break that streak. A small band of reporters, photographers, editors and designers gathered and somehow put together the Aug. 14, 2004, edition: “CATASTROPHIC CHARLEY CRIPPLES CHARLOTTE.” It wasn’t pretty. But it was printed and delivered because never before did the community need such vital information.
Over the next few days, we operated out of several different locations until the company acquired a large generator able to power the main office and pressroom. For several weeks, the Sun delivered the newspaper free to nonsubscribers in our tri-county area as the need for information continued during the aftermath. The first two weeks were the most physically tiring, as the majority of staffers had no power at home — if they still had homes. Several of our employees lost their houses and nearly a year after the one-year anniversary, some still are living elsewhere. The daily grind meant working all day and trying to get home before the countywide 9 p.m. curfew — then, trying to sleep without air conditioning during the hottest months in southwest Florida.
Disasters such as Hurricane Charley bond people. The first 24 hours were the toughest personally as my neighborhood was among the hardest-hit areas. Though my building survived, with typical roof damage and broken windows, several of my neighbors lost their homes. One of my good friends from a television station worked two blocks away. She and her cameraman were inside the glass building when the windows blew in on them. Having no working phones, it was days before I learned she was alive and well.
Balancing the emotions and stress of having no working toilets, running water or electricity became a juggling act and after a few weeks, we were all pros at it.
Adding to the bizarre nature of those first few weeks was the fact that we were in the odd positions of being news providers and news needers at the same time. I’ll never forget walking into the newsroom on the fifth day after the hurricane, seeing the city reporter approaching and hearing him say, “When you go home today, you should be able to flush.”
That had been the best piece of news I’d received. Those of us in the hard-hit areas also found ourselves resisting assistance. I lived two blocks from the downtown media briefing area, which was also located next to a “Comfort Station,” where National Guardsmen distributed ice and other necessities. I had few supplies at home during the first week. Though we wrote numerous stories about hurricane preparedness over the years, many of us found ourselves unprepared.
Sure I got a few cans of Spaghettio’s, a few bottles of water and a couple extra candles — but I was far from prepared for a catastrophic hurricane that left us surviving what many called “the longest camping trip ever.” After more than a week of denying assistance, I gave in. And it was humbling to finish covering the daily news briefing and walk over to the comfort station for a free bag of ice. Despite the fact we were reporters covering the news, we also were citizens in the middle of a natural disaster with needs of our own. And when you can’t find ice elsewhere and went more than a week without cold drinks in the middle of a hot Florida summer, you can’t be too proud or too above accepting help.
But what became truly challenging was finding new words for “damaged,” “destroyed,” or, my favorite, “hunker down.” That was the term meteorologists used to tell people to get into their closets and under their mattresses.
And we used these terms over and over and over again. But when four hurricanes hit/struck/nailed/punched the state/Florida/Sunshine State, there were few options when writing the building was damaged/destroyed/ruined/leveled/etc. The trusty thesaurus was little help after a while.
As if Charley wasn’t enough, causing more than $6 billion in damage, his friend Frances decided to make a visit.
Though it was an Atlantic storm, striking the East Coast, we knew it would travel across the state and bring unneeded winds and rains to a battered community. Residents were warned to stay elsewhere if their homes had been damaged by Hurricane Charley as even 40 mph winds could wipe out the rest of an already beaten home. Therefore, my executive editor, assistant city editor and I slept at the office. After the paper was put to bed, we hung out in the newsroom, playing computer games and watching DVDs. After a few hours, we each took a conference room and went to bed — yet another odd memory from an unforgettable hurricane season.
Then there was Ivan. About two days before making landfall, meteorologists predicted Ivan would make a direct hit on Punta Gorda. And Ivan was another beast like Charley. There was simply no way the county would survive another hit. Evacuations were ordered, again. Though you feel bad saying please hit somewhere else, we just couldn’t make it through a tropical storm – let alone another hurricane. Thankfully for us, sorry Panhandle, Ivan didn’t follow Charley’s path. Neither did Jeanne, but she left our beaten city flooded.
Nearly a year later, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte and other affected communities from the 2004 hurricane season are still struggling to return. Much of downtown Punta Gorda was razed including the auditorium, a waterfront hotel, strip mall and several local businesses. Thousands of homeowners are still waiting for new roofs. And about a third of the county’s schools have to be rebuilt, along with a few fire stations and other essential services. But progress has been made, slowly.
The Lobster
As the crisis phase ended and the recovery phase began, the Sun began getting a bit of attention. Colleagues applauded our efforts. The community thanked us for delivering the news. Local leaders relied on us to relay their messages.
But it was the accolades journalists dream of that surprised us most of all.
The Pulitzer Prize has been known to be journalism’s worst-kept secret. Days after the jury met to select the Pulitzer finalists, the leaks flowed and trickled into our newsroom. First came the phone call from Editor and Publisher asking the bosses for comment about being a rumored finalist in the breaking news category. We thought ... no way. Then, the city editor got a congratulatory e-mail from a colleague. And then, an aide for a local congressional leader called, offering congratulations after seeing our name listed along with the Newark Star Ledger and South Florida Sun Sentinel in a blog. We couldn’t believe it. Yes, we got the newspaper out under very difficult circumstances, but it was pretty ugly.What started as a practical joke turned into superstition. I had told another editor that we weren’t using the P-word, but we were calling it “The Lobster.” I thought it would be funny if in conversations with others, he talked about “The Lobster” and garnered confused reactions. But the name stuck. Soon, we were all calling it “The Lobster.”
As the announcement date neared, we received calls from outside media outlets asking to be in our newsroom when the Pulitzer winners were posted.
Champagne was on ice. A rockin’ CD was ready to be played. The TV cameras were rolling. The photographers were focused. And the Pulitzer Prize went to ... the Newark Star Ledger for its coverage of a gay governor.Since the CNN interview, I have vowed not to tell lies my mother would find out about. So, yes, I was disappointed. But I was proud of all we accomplished. I was proud to have been a part of an incredible team of journalists who shared a common goal that our first priority was delivering the much-needed news during the darkest days. I was proud of the “Little Paper that Could and Did.”
And it really became much easier to put disappointments into perspective when thousands of our fellow community members, including colleagues, were still homeless. The Pulitzer — er, Lobster — would have been an unbelievable achievement; and being a finalist was an incredible accomplishment as well. But we’re far more blessed having loved ones, homes and jobs that survived the 2004 hurricane season — and this time, I’m not lying.
In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize finalist, the Sun was won the Gold Medal for hurricane coverage from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors along with numerous other first-place state awards and was named a finalist for the Scripps Foundation National Journalism Award for Public Service.