NI man caught up in hurricane

Insurers and residents counting the cost of Hurricane Charley

A Londonderry man is recovering after getting caught up in the worst storms to hit Florida in a decade.

Seventeen people were killed and thousands left homeless after southwest Florida was pummelled by Hurricane Charley at the weekend.

Electronics expert Sean Freeman went to Daytona to see the hurricane and his car was caught by its tail-end.

His uncle Colm Magill told the BBC that Sean was lucky to be alive.

"When he heard this hurricane was going to miss Jacksonville, but that the tail-end of it would go through Daytona, he headed for Daytona," said Mr Magill.

"As soon as he arrived, he drove right into it.

"I don't know whether he did it deliberately or he just didn't realise. The car flipped up in the air 40 feet and was thrown 40 feet.

Heavy rain

"Only the neighbours or someone came around to pull him out, or he'd be probably would have been dead now."

Mr Freeman was released from hospital on Monday night.

Hurricane Charley ploughed across central Florida, uprooting trees and power lines, and dumping heavy rain.

Before reaching land in Florida, the hurricane increased to category four - the second most severe on the five-level Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale.

Punta Gorda, a town of some 15,000, took the full force of the storm, with few buildings left untouched after the hurricane came ashore on Friday at 1550 (1950 GMT).

The hurricane also hit North and South Carolina but in a weaker form.

Many of Charley's victims died after the hurricane had passed.

One newspaper reported that two of the fatalities were caused when a family used an emergency generator when their home lost power.

More than one million people were left without electricity and hundreds of thousands without water.

Florida officials said Charley was the worst storm to hit their state since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew caused billions of dollars worth of damage in Miami.

Insurers estimate that Hurricane Charley may cost the industry as much as $14bn (£7.6bn; 11bn euros).

Companies, however, will get a hand from the US government, which has set up a special fund to pay for repairs.