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photos.ALBj.net → 2004 → Hurricane Charley Damage, August 13-15, 2004

This set begins with a few night shots around the apartment complex where I lived at the time and the nearby vicinity shortly after Charley passed over, followed by more shots of my complex and around Altamonte Springs, Winter Park, and Casselberry the morning after. Then, the latter half of this set contains photos by Mark Offenback (a friend of one of my coworkers) who went down to Punta Gorda over the weekend to help with a feeding station.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The street I lived on fared quite well, aside from being pitch black. My living room windows are just out of frame on the left.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
A 90° turn to the left from the previous photo (my bedroom windows are out of frame on the right). I was concerned about the large pine tree falling, though the winds predominately blew southwest and would've blown the tree away from my building.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Walking down the sidewalk in the previous photo, I discovered a tree that actually did get blown over.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Reverse side of the previous photo.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Same tree. The root system nearly toppled nearby A/C units.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
This is what most of the rest of the streets throughout my complex looked like.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Though we lost several trees, this is the only one that caused significant problems.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Fortunately, the roads loop around the complex, so people's cars weren't trapped in the rear portion of the property.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
All that mess in the previous photo came off of this one little area.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
This shot was taken from a street corner. Continuing to the left is the street passing in front of my building, eventually reaching the point where this album's first photo was taken.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Moving around to the back side reveals some limbs scraped the building and ripped off superficial portions.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The storm had literally just passed when I started taking these shots. A combination flash+long exposure shot reveals what, in all likelihood, is the south side of Charley's eye.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
My complex had just recently reshingled all the buildings, so it was all pretty strong and we didn't have too much roof damage.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Scouts honor—Charley did not knock over this carport. The poles had rusted at ground level and it toppled a good several weeks ago. I wonder if the property mangers added this to the hurricane insurance claim. Mua-ha-ha!

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The back corner of our property.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
More downed limbs.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
More of the relatively minor roof damage.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
More downed limbs.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
On the street that leads to the apartment complex's entrance, a house lost part of its fence.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Another angle of the same fence. No, that's not snow—it's what rain looks like with a telephoto focal length and a flash pop that light up the drops.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
These trailers were parked in the back lot of the Marketplace at Altamonte which is on the S.R. 436/North Lake Blvd. corner in front of my apartment complex entrance. I'm not sure where they were originally parked, but the wind ended up slamming them together.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Around front, a store sign took a hit…

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
…causing pieces to fall all over the driveway.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
I know, I probably shouldn't have been anywhere near this! The next several shots are back in the Hattaway Drive neighborhood, south of my apartment complex and north of Maitland, on the east side of Interstate 4.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Don't forget that it's entirely possible this trampoline's original location likely on the other side of the fence.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The first damaged vehicle I saw.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
I later drove by this house, but without my camera, and the tree had been cleared. Though damaged, the truck still looked drivable. Another truck in this vicinity though, I noticed took a major hit to the roof and windshield.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
One of the primary roads through the neighborhood was totally blocked.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
A large, partially fallen tree, probably unsalvageable.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The next morning, I went back to check out the tree that was blocking a road in my complex.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Just another angle.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
As far as I can tell, the tree in the prior shots and this one are the only two large trees we lost.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
A fence between the front section of our property and some houses in the Hattaway Drive neighborhood fared better than I would've expected.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Some parts better than others.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The same fence along the street leading up to my apartment complex entrance.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Out along S.R. 436.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Also along S.R. 436.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
This and the previous tree are in the former Blockbuster plaza at Montgomery Road.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
One of the signs in the former Blockbuster plaza. Montgomery Road is in the distance, to the north.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Yet another tree in the former Blockbuster plaza, Montgomery Road/S.R. 436 intersection in the distance.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Wymore Road, along the west side of Interstate 4.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Further south on Wymore, after it crosses to the east side of Interstate 4.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
On the corner of Lee Road and Highway 17/92.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Just north of the Lee Road/Highway 17/92 intersection.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Former location of Holler Dodge on 17/92, just north of Lee Road.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Former location of Holler Honda, just a block further north.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Continuing north on 17/92, models in a playground equipment store were hopefully not anchored as well as they would be when they get permanently installed somewhere!

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Continuing north on 17/92, almost back to S.R. 436 (a couple miles east of Interstate 4), the Orlando Jai Alai arena took some damage.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The rear parking lot of the arena became a staging ground for power workers.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Stacks of new power poles brought in to replace damaged ones.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
I took some back streets while headed back west toward my apartment. Other cars drove under this. I chose not to.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
On the corner of Maitland Ave. and S.R. 436.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
A strip mall across the street from Florida Hospital Altamonte.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Same strip mall facing Florida Hospital Altamonte.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Back down in Winter Park, my office's small section of covered parking was the worst damage we sustained.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Obviously, we had nothing to complain about compared to other losses.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Two light fixtures only barely survived. They were originally standing straight.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The other light pole, also leaning.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Across the street from my office was a landmark sign that was grandfathered or something, and no one would take it down, even though the "Coffee Shoppe" had long been out of business. Several restaurants have occupied the building since. It was an Asian food joint at the time of the storm, I think, and it later became a hair salon. Well, even though most of this sign ended up as small pieces all over our parking lot and a considerable amount of time had passed following Hurricane Charley, the entire structure was finally removed and hauled away.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Pieces of the old Coffee Shoppe sign blew all over the north side of my office's property.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
And I do mean all over.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The northeast corner of our building is closest to the sign.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Another piece.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
More pieces.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Over on the northwest corner, looking toward the old sign. More pieces of the letters.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Looking south along the west side of our building. Still more sign debris.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Opposite angle of previous photo.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
This is not our billboard, so I don't count this as damage related to our office.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Ditto for the larger billboard, also on the northwest corner of our property.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Directly across the street to the east of our building is a house-turned-office that was used for a branch of our company before we eventually rented it to a day care service. Behind that house are two more houses we own. Originally, those two houses were used for storage, but residents in the area objected to "commercial" uses creeping into their neighborhood. We were forced to not store items there and either sell or rent out the homes. We chose the latter…

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
…well, a large tree in the front yard had a different idea! Fortunately, the occupant had taken the advice of his next-door neighbor (who occupies the other house owned by our office) and got into a hotel on Friday night.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The front side makes the damage look more significant that it really is. I initially assumed we'd end up having to finish the job of demolishing it.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
However, as you'll see in later photos, and can sort of see here, the carport area took the brunt of the hit. The living area remained somewhat intact. Nevertheless, my office leaders did end up choosing to demolish the entire house.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
A close-up of where the tree snapped.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Another close-up.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Looking back the opposite direction from the prior photos. Our office across the street can be seen on the right in the background. The building in front of it is the house-turned-office I mentioned earlier.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
One more front shot shows a bit more clearly the portion of the house that was crushed.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Around back, top of tree gets friendly with top of house.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
It was sort of unclear at this point if the limbs created too much weight on top of the house for it to be safe to enter.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
If much of the roof was in the same condition as this section, I certainly wouldn't be advising anyone to enter!

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
The breezeway on the right leads to the carport that was crunched.

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Looking through the breezeway, you can see that there's a car still in there!

Hurricane Charley Damage In Central Florida
Looking northwest, all four buildings are visible—office, house-turned-office, first rented home, second rented home.