As T.S. Bill bears down on Texas, where does SW Fla. stand?

The death toll continues to rise as carbon monoxide poisoning claims more people in the wake of one of the most powerful natural acts in Southwest Florida history.

Nearly half a million are without power, and some people living on barrier islands have been without clean water or food for days. The category 4 hurricane that smashed into the coast last week has left nearly 150,000 people homeless.

More than a dozen dead have been accounted for so far; the most recent deaths coming from unsafe burning in enclosed structures.

A statement from the governor's office sums up the dire conditions: "Our worse fears have come true."

Those realities from the aftermath of Hurricane Charley (2004) still linger in the heads and hearts of many locals. The first major hurricane to make landfall here since Donna (1960), Charley cause more than $15 billion in damages. A "FEMA City" of trailers emerged in Punta Gorda and aerial views of areas such as Cape Coral showed a sea of blue tarps covering rooftops damaged by powerful winds.

From Hurricane Katrina to the remnants of Hurricane Mitch, several storms have flirted with the Southwest Florida coast in recent decades; but three stand out among the rest: Charley, Donna and Wilma.

Forecasters were predicting the night before landfall that Charley would land in the Tampa Bay area as a Category 3. Instead, the storm bucked to the east a bit and strengthened before slamming ashore at Cayo Costa State Park in northern Lee County.

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Charley caught many people in Southwest Florida off-guard, but Dennis Feltgen, spokesperson for the National Hurricane Center, said people here should have been better prepared because the agency had issued a hurricane warning for Lee County.

"Folks in Southwest Florida thought the hurricane was going to Tampa Bay," Feltgen said. "Well, you had a hurricane warning in place (and some people didn't make preparations). That's a problem — a nightmare scenario."

Charlotte County Emergency Management Chief Marianne Taylor remembers Charley well. She stayed at fire station 12 during landfall.

"We actually lost the roof," Taylor said. "We had a lot of civilians that showed up at the last minute seeking shelter. Of course we couldn't turn them away. So when things got intense we had them in the bathroom and covered them with mattresses."

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The aftermath was even worse.

"You see the devastation, power lines are down, street signs are down," Taylor said. "The first time we got on the road the fire trucks were responding with no windshields because they had been blown out. We had to dig the debris off the (trucks and equipment) in order to respond."

Charley was one of six hurricanes that formed between Aug. 3 and Oct. 11 that year; but 2005 was even more active — with 12 hurricanes — and brought a second massive storm, Wilma, to Southwest Florida in the course of 14 months.

The fact that Charley made landfall here was not shocking to experts at the Hurricane Center.

"The location where the storm was positioned in relationship to the Florida coast, all this thing had to to was shift it's track by 15 to 20 degrees and it made a huge difference," Feltgen said. "If that happened over open ocean we wouldn't notice, but it makes a big difference when it's 100 miles off the coastline. (Hurricanes) are not a dot on a map. They're large storms over large areas."

For Lee County, Hurricane Donna (1960) is the second most notorious storm to make landfall here.

Donna was one of the most powerful, devastating tropical systems in recorded history. That storm hit every state on the eastern seaboard with hurricane strength winds, starting in the Florida Keys and continuing north to Maine.

The only storm to bring hurricane force winds to Florida, the Mid-Atlantic and New England, Donna made landfall as a Category 4, ravaged nearly the entire state, re-emerged in the Atlantic Ocean and made several more landfalls. Donna was a Category 3 by the time it landed in North Carolina, and the storm stayed at that strength before making landfall again on Long Island.

Donna caused storm surges of 11 feet in the Fort Myers area, according to National Hurricane Center records, and inflicted $387 million in damages.

Hurricane Wilma came during the most active tropical season on record. The slow-moving, massive storm took 63 lives and left about $29 billion in damages.

Unlike Charley, Hurricane Wilma's path met the public's expectations.

"The track going into Southwest Florida had been there for days," Feltgen said. "Wilma was a slow-moving storm, but it went from a weak hurricane to a Category 5 in less than a day, and that got everybody's attention."

It was the last hurricane to strike Florida, which means the Sunshine State hasn't been targeted by the tropics in nearly a decade.

"We're going on 10 years without a hurricane, but I guarantee you that remarkable streak is going to end, and it could be this year." Feltgen said.

Meteorologists are calling for a relatively quiet hurricane season this year; experts at Colorado State University are calling for seven named storms and three hurricanes, with one of those becoming a major (category 3 or higher).

But Feltgen and others are quick to warn: "It's only slow, quiet or boring if you don't get hit. If you get hit it's anything but that. Some of the worst hurricanes to hit the United Sates were during so-called 'slow season.' The classic case is Hurricane Andrew (1992). It was the first storm of the year and it was a Category 5 right off the bat."

A typical year, based on weather records dating to 1950, has 12 tropical storms, of which seven become hurricanes. A tropical storm has sustained winds of 39 mph; it becomes a hurricane when its winds reach 74 mph.

Other noteworthy hurricanes that skirted Southwest Florida in recent history include:

• Ivan (2004) took a circuitous tour of the Southeastern United States, first landing in Alabama, then going north to Maryland before emerging into the Atlantic Ocean. From there the system moved south, then across south Florida and the Gulf of Mexico before landing as a tropical storm in Texas.

• Katrina (2005) crossed south Florida days before it pummeled Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, bringing windy, rainy conditions to Southwest Florida.

• Mitch (1998) made landfall in Central America as a major hurricane. It crossed the Yucatan peninsula before re-emerging in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm lost strength and landed in Southwest Florida as a tropical storm.

• Andrew (1992) devastated the Miami area, Homestead and Florida City before crossing the state and emerging off the coast of Southwest Florida. Most weather and wind gauges on the east coast were destroyed by the storm, making it impossible to document wind speeds and barometric pressure.

By the numbers

• 1,225: People died from tropical systems during 2005.

• 190: Mile per hour sustained winds at landfall from Allen in 1980.

• $108: Billion dollars in damage done by Katrina in 2005.

• 31: Tropical depressions were recorded in 2005.

• 15: Foot storm surge is the largest on record in Florida (Great Miami Hurricane of 1926).

Sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, The News-Press archives

You can always keep up on the latest hurricane news and read articles from our 2015 Hurricane Guide at: news-press.com/hurricane

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