I am concerned about the misreporting of deaths from Huricane Charlie and landed up here after investigating the matter. I moved from Port Charlotte, Florida to Colorado on July 30, 2004 so I was not there to experience the storm. Nevertheless, I have numerous friends and business associates in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. This is what I have learned:

1) A close friend (an RN from Charlotte Regional Medical Center in Punta Gorda) stated he saw, "a pile of bodies" being removed from Maple Estates mobile home park on the day after the storm. He told me his immediate thoughts were, "Holy Cow, this is really bad". I asked him on the phone, "Was there a few, two, three or what?" He replied,
"I don't know, there was just a pile one on top of the other".

2) My son's Godmother (age 70 or so) from Port Charlotte whose daughter "Paula" works for a morgue in Punta Gorda, told me there was over a hundred bodies recovered and was puzzled about why they were not reporting the actual numbers of dead. She said they received many bodies from the Best Western Hotel whose roof collapsed during
the storm and that she was concerned because the morgue could not get ice to preserve the bodies since they had no electricity. The Best Western sits on the Peace River on the Punta Gorda side just north of Tamiami trail.

I havn't heard anything lately. These reports were in the first days following the storm. I know several people who work for the Charlotte County Fire Department and I'm going to call them to see what they say. If more people confirm or give eye witness accounts of the death toll...I'm going to be more likely to believe the media is being mislead. I can only reason that it is to restore order, electricity and other utilities, to attempt ID of the bodies, and to establish facilities to manage the situation.

Seems there are others here and elsewhere who have similar concerns on the reported death toll by the media. I would like to see facts from others on this matter.