Ok. Let me give you my highly subjective and personal point of view. Charley was my first hurricane. So I am definitely not an expert. But this is what I lived through during what some say is only a Cat 1 hurricane.

At about 11PM the rain was flying *horizontally*. Since the winds were initially from the south east (due to the rotation) I could stand outside my house behind my garage facing the north. I was standing with a powerful flashlight (we had all lost power by then) and, hidden behind the wall of my garage, I could see the rain 'falling' *horizontally*. About 20 yards away I could see palm trees bent *horizontally*. And the worst was the sound: the low rumbling frequencies of a passing freight train. At about 1115 we had a tornado pass over our neighbours' hourse. It ripped out the roof and every single ceiling in the house later caved in due to water leaks. In fact, in our subdivision, our house was the ONLY ONE who did not have a single ceiling cave in due to Charley's tornadoes.

After the 1115 tornado (my time is my best estimate - I was not exacly paying close attention to time) my wife, my three kids and myself spent three hours sitting in a walkin closet listening to the debris going pang! pang! pang! while hitting our house. The rest of the noise was an omnious low-frequency brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr like a giant was growling at us from the sky. At about 1AM it was all over. My wife and I exited our house to see if any of our neighbours needed help. Outside there was a strange kind of 'mist' which in the beams of our flashlights seemed to be constantly shifting in all directions, but without much power. My impression is that Charley passed over us in about 3 hours only and that its winds were way over 75mph, way way over.

So a cat 4 Charley hit Punta Gorda and was going fast enough to cross our small city of New Smyrna Beach in 3 hours. And at that speed it was down to a Cat 1 (without ever being a Cat 3 or Cat 2 according to the data) by the time it hit us?!

Maybe. But this is really hard to believe. It sure felt like something huge, massive, scary and infinitely powerful.

Maybe I am being too emotional. But I can tell you that this was the single most frightening manifestation of nature I have ever seen (and I have seen plenty of storms, including at sea).

YMMW

VS