Hurricane Charley tore through southern Florida on 14 August 2004, leaving at least 15 people dead and thousands of homes and businesses in ruins. Charlotte County, which includes the coastal town of Punta Gorda, accounted for 10 of those fatalities.
Punta Gorda took the storm's full force. Mobile home parks across the area were reduced to tangles of aluminum sheeting, and a local hospital recorded a gust of 173 miles per hour before its gauge was destroyed. Rescue workers called for 60 body bags at a single trailer park, and officials warned the death toll would rise as search teams moved through the wreckage.
Charley was the most destructive hurricane to strike Florida since Andrew in 1992. Power went out for more than a million residents, and hundreds of thousands lost water service. Downed trees, utility poles, and overturned vehicles blocked roads, while small planes at several airports were flipped by the winds.
The storm had tracked farther south than forecast, leaving many residents unprepared despite evacuation orders covering roughly 1.4 million people. Charley moved northeast through Orlando and Daytona Beach before continuing up the Atlantic coast into the Carolinas and Virginia. Before reaching Florida, it had killed four people in Cuba.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in August 2004, in its own words.