It's been 10 years since Hurricane Charley hit the Punta Gorda area and raced across central Florida.

But for one Bay area man, the memories remain vivid.

Tom Iovino, a hurricane preparedness specialist with Pinellas County, was especially concerned in the days leading up to Aug. 13, 2004. Charley was on a projected course toward Pinellas County, but shifted and made landfall as a Category 4 storm to the south of the immediate Bay area.

"It was the first time, you know, in my career with the county doing emergency management, that we were frightened," said Iovino, now a communications specialist with the county.

The storm left 10 people dead and 2 million people without power. Property damage was estimated at $5.4 billion and agriculture damage was estimated at $285 million.

"We knew at that point," Iovino said. "We had to take all the preparations that were being made for Pinellas County and the Tampa Bay area and turn south."

Pinellas deputies were among the first to arrive in Punta Gorda, bringing supplies and help to victims. Iovino was among them.

"Everywhere you turned, as the far as the eye can see, trees had been knocked down, buildings had been devastated," he said. "Seeing the kind of impact it had on people, you could just see it on their faces."

A lot of hard lessons in proper storm preparation were learned, but Iovino worries that many of the lessons have been forgotten after 10 years.

"I think a lot of people think, 'It can't happen here,' " Iovino said. "And they take what we say and think, 'Well that's nice, but we're protected somehow. We're never going to get a storm.' "

The year 2004 was a landmark year for Florida. Four storms tore through central Florida in a six-week period: Charley, followed by Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. It was the first time four hurricanes hit one state in one season since four hurricanes made landfall in Texas in 1886.

"The reality of it is, it just takes that one storm to come through to really devastate the area," Iovino said. "And you have to be ready."