Charley rolls across Central Florida

Hurricane Charley battered Central Florida tonight, packing 105 mph winds that tore off roofs, knocked down trees and left tens of thousands of residents without power.

There were widespread reports of trees falling on homes and storm-related fires, as well as unconfirmed reports of tornadoes in Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties.

More than 500,000 customers were without power statewide, including all of Hardee County and Punta Gorda. An estimated 62,000 Orlando Utilities Commission customers had lost power -- one-third of their service area -- and as of 10 p.m., 477,000 Progress Energy customers were out in the 35 counties it serves in Florida.

The hurricane made landfall at Charlotte Harbor about 3:45 p.m. with a wicked combination of water and 145 mph winds. The storm tracked up the Interstate 4 corridor, hitting Orlando around 9 p.m. At 11 p.m. the storm’s center was 10 miles from the coast in Daytona Beach. Winds had died down to 85 mph with 105 mph gusts.

“This is the nightmare scenario that we’ve been talking about for years,’’ hurricane center director Max Mayfield said of storm surges that ranged from 10 to 15 feet.

And then it carried its violence rapidly inland.

“Happy Friday the 13th,’’ said Don Paterson of Punta Gorda, who tried to ride out the storm at his mobile home but got beaned by a flying microwave oven as his home was demolished. His refrigerator fell on him, and he spent the rest of the storm sheltering behind a lawnmower.

At Charlotte Regional Medical Center in Punta Gorda, up to 50 people came in with storm injuries. The hospital was so badly damaged that those injured and existing patients were being transferred to other hospitals on Coast Guard helicopters.

“We can’t keep patients here,” chief executive officer Josh Putter said. “Every roof is damaged, lots of water damage, half our windows are blown out. ...

“There’s a lot of crush injuries. Things have fallen on people, crushed their legs, crushed their pelvis -- a lot of bleeding, a lot of major and minor lacerations.”

Just up the Peace River, in Arcadia, one wall collapsed at a civic center serving as a shelter for 1,200 people. Only one person was hurt, and her injuries were minor.

The wall “started peeling back,’’ said Alida Dejongh. “It lifted and you could just see more and more light. You could hear this popping and zipping noise like a giant Ziploc bag.’’

As of 9:30 p.m., there was one storm-related death reported in Central Florida. A young girl was killed in a traffic accident on the Beeline Expressway when a tractor-trailer lost control in high winds and rolled on top the car she was in. Statewide, there were two other deaths -- one from a crash on Interstate 75 in Sarasota County and another. A man who stepped outside his house to smoke a cigarette died when a banyon tree fell on him in Fort Myers, authorities said.

At the Wellesley Inn in Kissimmee, the wind blew air conditioners off their mountings and sent Ana Rodriguez, 58, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, into the hallway to pray.

“Pray to the Lord and sing. Pray to the Lord and sing,” she chanted in Spanish as she held hands with other vacationers stranded at the hotel. She said the words gave her peace.

The power went out around 8:35 p.m. and candles set off fire alarms. The walls of the hotel shook, but Rodriguez says she trusts God and that her life is in his hands. In 1988, she lived through another hurricane. “I prayed to the Lord, and we were OK.”

At 9 p.m., the center of hurricane was located near latitude 28.4 north, longitude 81.4 west, or about 15 miles south-southwest of downtown Orlando. Charley was moving near 25 mph.

Orlando International Airport reported sustained winds of 61 mph with gusts to 83 mph. Hurricane force winds extended outward up to 25 miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 85 miles.

President Bush declared Florida a major disaster area, making federal money available to Charlotte, Lee, Manatee and Sarasota counties. In Lee County alone, a property appraiser estimated damage at $2.3 billion.

“Our prayers are with you and your families tonight,” the president said from Seattle. “We have deployed resources to help and declared an emergency, and the process is now in place to provide federal aid to those who may be affected by this hurricane.”

Orange County Commission Chairman Richard Crotty urged residents to stay off the roads and to use their cell phones only for emergencies. He said he spoke to Gov. Jeb Bush and was promised that Orange County will get the resources it needs to recover from Hurricane Charley.

“We have done everything in our power to prepare for this storm,” Crotty said.

Hurricane Charley’s projected path has it moving northwest across the state through Polk, Osceola, Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties, according to the National Hurricane Center. It could take eight hours to move across the state, exiting around St. Augustine or Daytona Beach.

Read the for the latest updates.

Orange County workers will be out in force at first light assessing damage, said officials, who also issued a warning to would-be looters.

“We have a zero tolerance for looting,” said Orange County undersheriff Malone Stewart. “Anyone who tries to take advantage of this perilous situation will be dealt with as harsh as the law allows.”

Central Floridians braced for Charley’s approach with a mix of apprehension and apathy.

Val and Betty Tracy sought shelter at Seminole Spring Elementary School west of Eustis after they decided their Southern Palm RV Park wasn’t the place to ride out the hurricane.

Val Tracy, a retired police officer from Maine, said it was his first hurricane and felt safer in the shelter.

“We’ve been married 57 years,” said Val Tracy, 76. “And we want to be here for a few more.”

Shelters across Central Florida started filling up early in the day.

At Dr. Phillips High School in Orange County, people arrived carrying luggage, water jugs and sleeping babies wrapped in blankets.

There were babies and grandmothers, energetic children and people in wheel chairs and on oxygen machines. A group of tourists from Rhode Island were hunkered down alongside apartment dwellers who live five minutes away.

Some inside looked bored. Some looked scared. A pickup basketball game was in one corner and across the room people watched the weather on television. All waited for what Charley might deliver.

“Mom, where’s the hurricane,” asked Chelsea Grant, 9, of Windermere. Chelsea and her little sister and parents had arrived about an hour earlier.

“Sit tight,” said her mom Tammy Grant, 33. “It’s coming.”

Around Central Florida, roads were empty by the late afternoon as many people began to hunker down.

At Thornton Park in Orlando at midday, most restaurants were closing early and turning away customers as they braced for the storm.

As the wind and fierce downpour passed through Summerlin Avenue, a drenched Paige Riordan, 35, ducked into Hue restaurant with her Russell terrier, Truman. Riordan had planned a Hurricane Charley party tonight and was shopping for drink mixes when the weather hit.

Riordan, a nurse, said she was racing to her home nearby when the storm struck. She quickly parked and brought her dog into the first open door she saw.

“I’m sopping wet,’’ she said inside the restaurant, talking to a friend on her cell phone. “I wasn’t fast enough to get home, I parked my car and ran into Hues. But I have my nurse kit with me if anything happens.’’

Hurricane Charley slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast south of Tampa at Charlotte Harbor at 3:45 this afternoon, swelling to a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph, and its path veered to take it directly over Orlando.

“Orlando, the metro area, Disney, all those amusement parks will get hammered pretty good,” said Stacy Stewart, a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “It’s like being in an F-1, F-2 tornado for two to three hours.”

“We’re seeing a tremendous amount of impact,” said Craig Fugate, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. “We expect to see hurricane force winds moving across the state,’’ he said. “We’re seeing a lot of storm surge. We’re seeing a lot of wind... This is the kind of storm that can do significant damage.”

Gov. Jeb Bush said damage could exceed $15 billion. President Bush declared the regions in Florida affected by Charley and Tropical Storm Bonnie a federal disaster area.

Damage was especially heavy in downtown Punta Gorda.

“It looks like a war zone -- power lines down everywhere, street signs, pieces of roofs blown off, huge trees uprooted,” said Buddy Martin, managing editor of the Charlotte Sun. “Everywhere you looked there was just devastation.”

Martin said he saw homes ripped apart at two trailer parks. “There were four or five overtuned semi trucks -- 18-wheelers -- on the side of the road,” he said.

Extensive damage was also reported on exclusive Captiva Island, a narrow strip of sand west of Fort Myers.

“There will be power outages, there will be downed trees, there will be flooding in low-lying areas,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said at a 1:30 p.m. news briefing from the city’s Emergency Operations Center.

Emergency Management Director Manuel Soto said the city could be buffeted by hurricane-force winds for as much as 12 hours, starting in the late afternoon and lasting into the early-morning hours Saturday.

Earlier today, Gov. Bush again warned coastal residents to take cover.

“This is a very deadly storm that is approaching our beloved state,” Bush said. “If you are in an evacuation area, you need to get to high ground now. There won’t be another alert because it will be too late.”

Officials said the evacuation of coastal and low-lying areas in Charley’s path was going well but that it was impossible to know the precise numbers of people fleeing or choosing to stay behind. The number of people evacuating could surpass the 2 million who fled their homes when Hurricane Floyd struck the Atlantic Coast in 1999, they said.

Crotty signed two executive orders today related to the coming hurricane. The first authorizes emergency expenditures to deal with the storm and its aftermath. The second prohibits price gouging, which is also prohibited under state law.

Business owners found to be gouging consumers can be fined $500 and jailed for 60 days.

“This is an opportunity to define ourselves and our community...in how we interact as neighbors, how we interact as friends and how we interact as a community,” Crotty said. Bush said has spoken with President George W. Bush and has received early approval of disaster funding that will allow small business loans and family assistance.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Ben Nelson the state meteorologist, added, hurricane trackers have reported another depression that could soon be a tropical storm southeast of Cuba and about five days away from Florida.

“This hurricane season is not starting out very well,” Nelson said. “I’m spinning right now myself.”

Sentinel staff writers Bob Mahlburg, Mark Schlueb, Scott Powers and Maya Bell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.