history that a Disney park was closed due to a hurricane, with the other occurrence being after Hurricane Floyd. The approaching hurricane also forced several cruise ships to reroute their paths, and forced rail service between Miami and New York to shut down. The rapid strengthening of Charley in the eastern Gulf of Mexico caught many by surprise. Around five hours before its Florida landfall, Charley was a strong Category 2 hurricane predicted to strengthen its strongest winds to upon its landfall in the Tampa–Saint Petersburg area. About two hours before landfall, the National Hurricane Center issued a special advisory, notifying the public that Charley had become a Category 4 hurricane, with a predicted landfall location in the Port Charlotte area. As a result of this change in forecast, numerous people in the Charlotte County area were unprepared for the hurricane, although the new track prediction was well within the previous forecast's margin of error. National Hurricane Center forecasting intern Robbie Berg publicly blamed the media for misleading residents into believing that a Tampa landfall was inevitable. He also stated that residents of Port Charlotte had ample warning, as a hurricane warning had been issued for the landfall area 23 hours before, and a hurricane watch had existed for 35 hours. Several local meteorologists, however, did depart from the official predictions of a Tampa Bay landfall as early as the morning of August 13. Jim Farrell of WINK, Robert Van Winkle WBBH, Steve Jerve of WFLA in Tampa, Jim Reif of WZVN in Fort Myers, and Tom Terry of WFTV in Orlando all broke with their national news forecasts and stated at around 1500 UTC that Charley was going to turn early, striking around Charlotte Harbor and traveling over Orlando, as would prove to be the case. Following the Florida landfall, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency as a precaution against a storm surge and price gouging. In South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford declared a state of emergency as Charley approached its final landfall. Two coastal counties were forced to evacuate, with state troopers redirecting traffic further inland from Myrtle Beach. In all, 180,000 evacuated from the Grand Strand area. Impact One death in Jamaica, four deaths in Cuba, and ten deaths in the United States were directly attributed to Charley. Numerous injuries were reported, as well as 25 indirect deaths in the U.S. Property damage from