Twenty years later, first responders who worked during Hurricane Charley are reflecting on how the massive storm impacted their careers.
One firefighter, now a lieutenant, was 18 at the time. It was his first-ever hurricane, too.
"I think that was that was when I truly got a taste of, you know, responding to true emergencies," Lt. Daniel West said.
He was at Fire Station 12, in the Deep Creek area of Charlotte County, the day Charley came through. He wasn't an employee at the time. He worked for a private ambulance.
"We were actually in this building, and the roof came off of it and ended up on the other side of 75, completely cleared the highway and landed in the field over there," West said. "The guys that worked here, they were out there trying to secure the trucks and the doors that have fallen on them and stuff."
It was after the winds settled and rain stopped, they took inventory of the damage, and the real work began.
"Grid searches, you know, seeing if people got out of their trailers, seeing if people stayed," he said. "Let's go check this neighborhood. Go check that neighborhood."
"Within two days, we started having in-state resources showing up from other fire departments around the state," Lt. Charles McCollum added. "They would embed into our fire stations. They all looked at us and said, 'Don't worry, we'll run the calls. You just tell us how to get there since we don't know how to get where we’re going.'"
Lt. Charles McCollum called station 12 home even twenty years ago. Although he didn’t ride out the storm here, he remembers the ride in.
"There were trees down, and street signs were all gone, and poles were down. It was like complete devastation," McCollum said. "Basically, when we got into work, we weren't leaving work."
McCollum was okay with that; he'd wanted to be a firefighter since he was a teenager. For West, though, Charley was a turning point.
"If anything, that's solidified that part of my career," West said.
Now with recruits of their own to train and teach, here's to hoping they never have to face a storm like Charley again.
"I don't think anything has since compared to Hurricane Charley for me in my career," McCollum said.