PUNTA GORDA, Fla., Aug. 17 -- Listen closely in the oozing traffic jams and the won't-this-ever-end ice line, and flinty voices can be heard. Disembodied, but somehow incredibly intimate, they have talked and talked for days now, crackling out of car radios and ancient transistors.
"There's bottled water at the corner of Harbor and 41."
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Hurricane Charley Hits Florida: Hurricane Charley hit Florida on Friday with more force than predicted, leaving thousands homeless.
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Hurricanes Compared: See how Charley compares with major storms over the past 10 years.
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"Ice across from Taco Bell."
"Does anyone have a porta-potty?"
The voices radiate from a tiny radio station -- broadcasting over five frequencies -- planted on the edge of a mangrove bog in the shredded-aluminum core of Hurricane Charley's path. The round-the-clock broadcasts have been like a step back in time, a time when radio was king.
There is no power in Punta Gorda. No television. Spotty phone service.
In other words, radio rules.
But the reign of Seaview-104.9 and its sister stations has been all the more remarkable because the radio station itself is a victim. Charley ripped the roof off the tiny wooden station and shattered its windows last week but somehow spared the announcer's booth. Within four hours after the storm passed, the station was back on the air.
What has ensued is a kind of reciprocal love affair. The tattered station and its cast of haggard announcers -- many of them with ruined homes of their own -- have directed listeners to the nearest MRE station or ice stand. The listeners have given back by showing up with hammers and wood to build a new roof, at a time when roof builders are almost impossible to find.
The reach of Seaview and other area stations could expand significantly because federal authorities plan to distribute 50,000 radio receivers to storm victims.
The Seaview station sits near the bend in a winding road that leads through a blasted-apart trailer park. Ron Hall, 67, a soft-spoken ham radio junkie with a pile of white hair, monitors the front door. Hall showed up unannounced, driving from his home in St. Petersburg. Now he is a fixture, leaning into a flashing, handheld device that receives information from the emergency operations center and jotting notes to be dashed into the announcer's booth.
There is no use blocking the entrance. The people come in all day. This is community activism meets journalism.
"Are you the radio guy?" Debbie Passaro asks as she stalks into the soggy lobby. "You need to find out when they're going to start collecting the garbage."
As Passaro gives her amateur's take on radio programming, General Manager Mike Moody's cell phone rings. It has been ringing almost as long as Punta Gorda has been a national focal point.
