"I watched one of the communications towers break off 45 feet up after being hit by flying debris," he says.

Two hours after it started, the wind was back down to 45 mph and dropping. Charlie had passed. But it left utter devastation behind.

Lesson 3: Plan multiple forms of redundant communications

When the storm passed, Hardee County had no power except for emergency generators, no wireline telephone service, no surviving cell towers. "Anything on a pole was gone," Faulkner says. "Even the satellite phones wouldn't work for some reason."

The emergency management director looked around and asked what his people coulddo. "I said, 'The Internet is still working.' So he sent an e-mail out asking, 'Is anybody out there?' His hands were shaking. When he received a response, there was cheering and a sigh of relief. For the next four days, the Internet was the county's only link with FEMA, the state emergency management office and the outside world in general.