[mushroomy2k]

good morning everyone i would have posted earlier but my hubby was home with the stomach flu since wed,then friday they didn't work cause we thought hurricane charley was headed to tampa bay but it changed course
and caught so many off gaurd because they thought it was coming farther north.
if it had came up the coast another 30/40 miles our town would have been hit too and if it had came into tampa bay we would have taken a direct hit like so many other rural communities did inland.
my prayers are with all who lost loved ones and everything they had.
Teri im 15 minutes from zephyrhills maybe i know your friends.
and kerri im so happy to hear you grandfather and his wife are ok.
Untold thousands are homeless in Punta Gorda and surrounding Charlotte County, where one in three of the 153,000 residents is age 65 or older.
Federal officials declared 25 of Florida's 67 counties disaster zones.
The losses around Punta Gorda in Charlotte were just one corner of a vast swath of Southwest and Central Florida littered by catastrophe. The area is 200 miles long and at least 30 miles wide. Mobile home parks and places near the historic ranching town of Arcadia also were severely struck.
Fort Myers and the rest of Lee County reported $3.3 billion in damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said 80 percent of the buildings in Charlotte County - including every mobile home and all three hospitals - sustained damage.
Dead cows wrapped in barbed wire were sprawled beside roads in DeSoto County.
Sanibel, Captiva and Pine islands remained closed to the public as officers conducted searches and rescues. Unconfirmed reports said that as many as 200 people tried to ride out the storm on those vulnerable islands.
we have just been lulled into thinking we can't be hit because we really haven't been hit in tampa bay or some cities south of here in in 30 years or more.
it's really sad that some people tried to ride it out.
my prayers for everyone.
you all have a terrific week.