Reports from BJ retirees on Hurricane Charley

Reports received by John Olesky from former BJ newsroom folks on Hurricane Charley.

Dave & Gina White moved from Sarasota to Venice last year.
Terry & Cecily Dray live in Avon Park, in the path of the hurricane and at least 7 tornadoes that swept up the middle of Florida on its way to Orlando and Daytona Beach.
My late wife Monia and I had reunions with all four on the deck of our Sea Castle rental on Siesta Key every February, and talked about the old days at the BJ and our lives today.

Terry & Cecily's email:
John, We made it thru the damage OK. Yes, we took a direct hit, but thank God all we lost was one orange tree and part of another...not even one shingle. But we had no power which meant no gasoline, no AC, no ice, no food. All we could do was sit on the porch in 90 degree plus weather and listen to the battery operated radio. When they said we would be without power for 6-8 days, we packed up the dog and drove (Terry had the foresight to fill our tank about 3 hours before the storm hit) to my sister in Charlotte, NC. We got back last night and the power came on about 5 minutes after we walked in. The damage down here is incredible. Driving North we saw huge convoys of big power trucks from several states, some as far as NY and they were joined by equal numbers of tree cutting equipment trucks. Thanks for worrying about us and take care. Terry & Cecily

Dave & Gina's email:
John -- we got by pretty easy. Average wind was 45 mph but we did have some wind gusts over 60 mph. And about 4 1/2" of rain. No damage to speak of so we were real lucky.
Port Charlotte is just about 20 minutes south of us and it was decimated. We do a lot of our shopping there, so that will probably not happen for a while. You're right. I think Cecily and Terry probably got a lot more of the hurricane than we did. But we haven't heard anything from them. I don't know if they have our email address or not.
Did the Guild settle their contract problems with the BJ?
Hope you're doing OK.
Gina and Dave