Hurricane Charley breezes past Georgia coast

<p>Light winds along the Georgia coast were the only indication that Hurricane Charley was hovering just miles away Saturday morning.</p><p>The storm passed well off the state's coast, with the highest winds only clocking in at 35 mph. The hurricane had brushed South Carolina's coast by 7 a.m., with the center expected to hit land Charleston and Myrtle Beach by noon Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.</p><p>A hurricane warning was issued from Altamaha Sound, Ga., north to the North Carolina-Virginia state line.</p><p>The Category 4 storm was stronger than expected when the eye reached the mainland at Charlotte Harbor on Friday, pummeling the coast with winds reaching 145 mph and a surge of sea water of 13 to 15 feet.</p><p>Charley was forecast to spread sustained winds of about 40 mph to 60 mph across inland portions of eastern North Carolina and to dump 3 to 6 inches of rain beginning Saturday morning, forecasters said. Gov. Mike Easley declared a state of emergency.</p><p>Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue also declared a state of emergency Friday in preparation for a possible disaster, as well as to prevent price gouging from merchants who may want to take advantage of evacuated Floridians in need of gas, food, lodging and other supplies.</p><p>But if there was a state of emergency in Savannah on Friday night, it was hard to tell it. Most people remained in town, and few seemed worried about the storm's possible impact on the Georgia coast.</p><p>"Bring it on!" said Matt Pearson, a 24-year-old paramedic from Columbia, S.C., who was among visitors to the River Street downtown entertainment district along the Savannah River.</p><p>Meanwhile, Charley had roared ashore in Florida south of Tampa, slamming the heavily populated Gulf Coast with devastating storm surges and winds that snapped trees in half, ripped roofs off buildings and tore apart airplanes. The eye of the worst hurricane to hit Florida in a dozen years passed directly over Punta Gorda, a town of 15,000.</p><p>Wayne Sallade, Charlotte County's director of emergency management, said early Saturday that there were "a number of fatalities" at the mobile home park, and that there were confirmed deaths in at least three other areas in the county.</p><p>By 11 p.m., it had weakened significantly during its passage over the Florida peninsula, the National Hurricane Center said. Sustained winds had dropped to 92 miles per hour as the storm passed Orlando headed to Daytona Beach.</p><p>In Savannah, police had asked that bars and restaurants close by 10 p.m. Although few did, those that remained opened had fewer customers than normal. On River Street, it was not as lively as a normal Friday night. The Cotton Exchange, which usually has half-hour waits, had only a few people inside, and and most were watching storm coverage on television.</p><p>Krystal Summers, 18, an Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College student from Fitzgerald, said she knew a storm was coming but didn't realize it was supposed to be a bad one.</p><p>"It's pretty beautiful out here now for there to be a storm coming," she said.</p><p>Pearson said he was supposed to go to a motocross race in Tampa but could not because of the hurricane. Instead, he came to Savannah.</p><p>As the state was preparing for the storm, so were state businesses. Georgia Power sent 25 power crew workers to Brunswick, and AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said the airline canceled 33 Friday flights out of Atlanta to Fort Myers and Tampa.</p><p>Atlanta-based Home Depot began loading hundreds of trucks with cleanup supplies to stock 40 stores in Georgia and Florida. Since the beginning of the week, the home-improvement giant has already sent hundreds of truckloads worth of supplies into Charley's strike zone, including 444,000 sheets of plywood, 1.2 million batteries, 30,000 generators and 150 truckloads of flashlights.</p>

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