Powering up

Scrounging for gasoline and ice, living without lights or air conditioning and now scrambling for child care on short notice because some schools will stay closed for another week, Central Floridians struggled Monday to deal with the woes caused by Hurricane Charley.

About 750,000 people in Central Florida remained without power for the fourth night since Charley struck, and utility officials said restoring power in some locations is taking longer than expected.

Orange County school officials announced Monday that classes will not resume until Aug. 24. Seminole and Osceola school officials are expected to decide today whether to reopen this week. Volusia County schools canceled classes through Wednesday. Schools in Polk County will remain closed through this week.

Early today, state emergency management spokeswoman Tameeka Forbes said the death toll had been raised from 18 to 19, but no further details on the new reported death were immediately released. The latest fatalities included an Osceola County motorist killed early Saturday in an accident caused by trees felled by the storm.

Elections Supervisor Dean Cullins, 60, died of a heart attack about 3 a.m., an assistant in his office in Wauchula said. The death was ruled storm-related because he was stricken as he worked to clear storm debris from around his home, said Stephen Nelson of the Winter Haven regional Medical Examiner’s Office.

Estimates of damage from Charley rose Monday as two insurance-industry groups said insured losses could hit $10 billion to $14 billion.

In the Orlando area, finding necessities such as gasoline, water and ice was a time-consuming challenge in many places Monday.

Gas stations in areas even miles from any storm damage had been pumped dry, and supplies were slow in coming. Stations that had gas often had long lines of motorists waiting to fill up. At a few stations, officials said, tempers flared.

Ten people were hospitalized after carbon monoxide flooded an Orlando shopping center, apparently the result of a ventilation system damaged by the hurricane.

Employees and customers in Deerfield Place on South John Young Parkway reported a foul smell followed by dizziness and headaches. Orange County Fire-Rescue investigators think the carbon monoxide came from a bakery and a pizzeria, which both had roof-top ventilation systems damaged in the storm, Lt. Frank Raike said.

At Orlando Sanford International Airport, where more than 3,000 stranded passengers sat out the hurricane, officials estimated that damages would total $4 million to $5 million.

National Weather Service meteorologists said Monday that data collected when Charley struck suggest the hurricane spawned at least eight tornadoes, including two in Polk County and one each in Osceola, Orange and Volusia.

American Red Cross officials said assessment teams have found 4,281 homes damaged by Charley in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. The hurricane caused major damage to 770 of those, and another 149 were destroyed, Red Cross officials said. In Polk County, Charley damaged 5,878 single-family homes, 9,289 mobile homes, 206 apartments and 549 businesses, Public Safety Director Larry Alexander said. Of those, 36 single-family homes, 681 mobile homes, 64 businesses and one apartment were destroyed.

Hospital emergency rooms were struggling with a crush of new patients from nursing homes without power or the elderly who could not stay home because home-care nurses and aides didn’t show up, said Pam Stenike of Orange County Health and Family Services.

Many of them have chronic illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s, or have recently suffered a stroke and need care, she said.

But the hospitals couldn’t handle the heavy flow of those patients, and at times Monday ambulances faced long waits at hospital emergency rooms until the patients could be accepted. At Sand Lake Hospital, county officials said, the wait reached two hours at one point Monday. County officials were trying to find nursing homes with vacancies and power in other parts of the region, she said.

Like homeowners, business owners were struggling to cope with their losses.

In east Seminole County, where Charley caused widespread destruction, Jerry Perez surveyed the damage to his 180-acre tree nursery. He estimated that the hurricane killed 20,000 of his 90,000 trees -- a loss that he said ran into the millions of dollars.

“It’s pretty tough,” Perez said. “What can you do, you know? You put it back together and try again.”

But there were signs of progress Monday, and help was pouring into stricken areas.

Water and ice -- some of it from as far away as Wisconsin -- were being distributed at fire stations and community centers.

Red Cross officials said 400 volunteers already had prepared and served more than 32,000 meals since Friday, and four feeding stations serving lunch and dinner are being operated in Osceola and Orange counties.

Orlando will become the temporary hub for federal hurricane relief in Florida. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Monday that its main disaster field office would move to Orlando from Tallahassee.

Neighboring communities that escaped Charley’s worst also pitched in.

From Lake County, where damage was slight, the Sheriff’s Office sent electrical generators to power sewer lift stations in Orange and Seminole counties. Leesburg sent 15 workers and four truckloads of equipment to Polk County, hard hit by Charley, to help restore power lines.

The Lake County school system, which resumed classes Monday, sent 15 workers to help clean up Seminole County schools, and more are expected to leave today for Orange County.

Workers also made progress restoring traffic lights, which had made driving slow and dangerous.

In Orange County, where 500 traffic lights were out of service Sunday, all but about 100 were working by the end of the day Monday. In unincorporated Seminole County, only 40 remained out of service Monday.

Election officials said the primary election was still scheduled to proceed Aug. 31.

Poll-worker training in some counties affected by the hurricane was scheduled to begin Monday but was delayed because of power outages.

Officials said utility crews were making steady progress restoring power, but warned that someone has to be the last to have electricity restored, and the hardest jobs will come last.

“As time goes by, they’re going to encounter tougher and tougher cases,” said Orange County Administrator Ajit Lalchandani. “It’s like turning on a Christmas tree. Some bulbs come on, and some don’t.”

But many were tired of waiting without any idea when their electricity would be restored.

On Ramona Lane in the Rock Lake neighborhood in west Orlando, residents Monday were angry that no city crews had come to remove the giant oak that blocked their street. Several homes in the neighborhood were crushed by the trees that smashed cars, punctured roofs and yanked down power lines.

“It would be nice if they would at least come out here and drive by and wave at us,” said Sybil Riddle, 68, a 35-year resident of the neighborhood and the Neighborhood Watch captain.

“Three days, and we haven’t even seen anybody from the city out here, other than the police,” Riddle said. “I’m a friend of [Orlando Mayor] Buddy Dyer, but when I see him I’m going to tell him just what I think.”

She got her chance 10 minutes later when Dyer happened to drive by in a police truck.

“Boy, it’s about time,” an agitated Riddle told the mayor, before beginning a rapid-fire rundown of the neighborhood’s problems, which included a stranger she said tried to get in her front door at 4 a.m. Monday.

Dyer told an aide to get the city’s public-works director on the phone to make sure he knew about the blocked street.

“OUC is restoring power as fast as they can, and they’re doing it in a systematic manner,” Dyer said.

Dyer said power at his own home was out until Sunday night, and his phone was still out Monday.

“I hope we’re not complaining too much,” Riddle told Dyer.

“No, no, no,” Dyer told her. “It’s tough. I know it is. But we’re doing everything we can. You just have to have a little patience.”

Maya Bell, Anthony Colarossi, Gwyneth K. Shaw, Melissa Harris, Beth Kassab, Susan Jacobson, Rene Stutzman, Robert Sargent, Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Sherman and Gary Taylor of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Roger Roy can be reached at rroy@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5436.