Was Hurricane Charley "The Perfect Storm"???

[displacedyankeedem]

My opinion is that things could have only gone slightly worse.

1. It jumped from a Cat 2 to a Cat 4 in a span of just a few hours.
2. It happened in what is probably one of two places (the other being the entire Atlantic coast of FL) where evacuating everyone that should have left is impossible. Simply put, there was exactly ONE practical avenue of escape for millions of people(Fort Myers to South Tampa), I-75 Northbound. To some extent, Jeb gambled and decided that only the Tampa/St. Pete area would get hit. He lost that bet and now people who shouldn't be dead are.
3.The Florida National Guard should be around to help things out....only problem is that the FL National Guard ain't in Florida right now; they're in Iraq. This is why you DON'T strip guard troops away unless it's WWIII.
4.It hit an area with a heavy elderly component who lived in trailers that shoulda been condemned as unsafe years ago. Betcha Jeb was carrying the water for some shoddy developers too.
5. The Media shouldn't have been screaming TAMPA! TAMPA! TAMPA! all week, instead they shoulda been screaming GULF COAST! GULF COAST! GULF COAST!

[OpSomBlood]

1. Not even close.

Andrew was...a Category 5 with a perfect circular structure. Probably the most "perfect" hurricane we'll ever see.

[displacedyankeedem]

2. No, I mean in terms of the flukes....

that came to gether to create the absolute humanitarian disaster in Port Charlotte. IIRC correctly, the forecasters called Andrew correctly didn't they?

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. No Andrew was supposed to hit Miami

When Andrew got to the coast of Florida it turned west sooner than expected and hit Homestead instead. Many people had evacuated from Miami and had gone south to Kendall and Homestead , ended up being worse off than if they had stayed home.

[OpSomBlood]

4. I was in South Miami and we got messed up pretty bad.

But you're right...the original path was for Andrew to pass right through downtown Miami, and it went southwest at the last moment.

[displacedyankeedem]

5. Gotcha

But shouldn't they have banned trailers by noe?