Lessons Of Charley

By Dee Gill; Wendy Malloy; Tim Padgett; Michael Peltier

Hurricane Charley ripped, helter-skelter, through Florida and up the East Coast last week, leaving bitter lessons in its path. First, there was the reminder that hurricanes are devilishly hard to predict. Last year, meteorologists at Miami's National Hurricane Center demonstrated remarkable accuracy with their storm-landing forecasts. But on Friday, after a million people were ordered to evacuate the Tampa area, Charley slammed into the shoreline 100 miles to the south instead. The 145-m.p.h. winds twisted aluminum siding as if it were gift ribbon and snapped 100-year-old pine trees. Then, as people raced inland, the storm followed, reminding everyone that on this extremity of land, there is little room to escape. "What we've managed to do is to evacuate a lot of people into the path of a hurricane," said a Tampa official. Governor Jeb Bush conceded the limitations of technology: "God doesn't follow the linear directions of computer models."

With at least a dozen casualties and billions of dollars in damages expected, locals were calling it the Friday the 13th Hurricane. But bad luck was not totally unexpected. Floridians have weathered repeated deadly hurricanes, such as Andrew, which in 1992 became the costliest U.S. disaster prior to 9/11. But those lessons were ephemeral. People have continued to move into Florida's dense metropolises, perched on the water's edge. And virtual cities of trailer parks have sprung up alongside vulnerable inlets. Some call it hurricane amnesia, and a cure is not in sight.

--By Dee Gill, Wendy Malloy, Tim Padgett and Michael Peltier