It is Mr Robertson-Burnett's second hurricane since taking over this B&B

Millions were left without power as high winds felled electricity lines, destroyed houses and uprooted trees.

A former resident of Norwich in England, now living in Florida, and a stranded British tourist send through their impressions of the hurricane as it happens:

Good morning from the battered, bruised but not beaten Florida peninsula.

The storm is surprisingly still around and a tornado warning has been issued in the last few minutes for the Kissimmee/St Cloud area - a popular area with UK tourists.

Damage is extensive and covers such a large area. The worst appears to be in the West Palm Beach to Melbourne areas.

While communities are quick to clear up the small debris and minor damage, the authorities have a gigantic task in getting the large trees and damaged buildings into a safe state, to say nothing of their removal.

The road structures alone will take weeks of work with so many traffic signs and lights now downed or inoperative.

The cost of the clean up from Frances and Charley is estimated to be in the billions.

However, the spirit of Floridians, if my neighbours are anything to go by, is undaunted, and the spirit of resolve and neighbourliness is a tonic.

The latter part of the storm has taken many people by surprise.

The calm of late afternoon has given way to some of the heaviest gusting of the day, and sustained rain. This is the trailing edge of the hurricane, but due to the banding of the rain pockets, there is still severe weather out there.

This is, I understand, is the big difference between previous hurricanes and Frances.

The duration of the storm is quite incredible. The length of time the storm takes to traverse means that much damage is caused by the persistence of the winds, rather than their strength.

I understand that several rain bands still have to pass us, and the deluge of water will inevitably be a feature of the problems to come.

While people were beginning to venture out their doors, it appears that everyone is settling in for the night, leaving any damage assessment until the morning.

The rain has now stopped and the visibility has improved. I can now see the Disney downtown area which seems to have suffered no structural damage.

There are numerous trees down but the wind has now dropped and is gusting rather than constant.

Quite a few cars are now on the streets even though the curfew is still in place.

Most of the kids in the hotel are going stir crazy after the second day locked inside.

Nobody seems to know when the airport will re-open and the British tourists who are here are completely in the dark as all the tour companies have been really poor at keeping people informed.

Storm now abating and emergency services are swinging into action.

Power has been restored in record time, despite the fact that two large trees had cut the cables to our area. Telephone also restored without fuss or delay.

Trees are still whipping at their tops but the worst is well past. A lot of surface water and debris to clear up, but Bartow has been a lot more fortunate than some of our near neighbouring communities.

The clear-up of the streets will commence very quickly and the wonderful Bartownians will have the place looking spic and span again in no time, as they did with Hurricane Charley.

Let's hope that Hurricane Hugo gives us a miss, and we can enjoy the generally wonderful Florida weather without a further 'big wind'.

The storm has abated slightly.

The palm tree leaves are still being forced to face westwards.

Streets are still empty and the traffic lights continue to change green to red and back for no audience other than the rain.

I understand that the storm will pick up again in the next hour.

The front edge of storm has now passed through. It has lost quite a bit of its strength, as is normal when passing over land rather than the warm ocean.

We are now in the centre and things are relatively calm.

We will get the back edge of the storm through in two to three hours, but this is not expected to be so severe.

From our vantage point we can see a lot of surface water and quite a bit of debris on the ground. One large tree has been downed and several larger branches are strewn around.

We will be able to venture out to survey any external house damage soon, we appear to have lost some roofing, as we have water penetration in one of our corridors.

I managed to speak to my near neighbour on a mobile phone and he has an oak tree which appears to have split down the middle and is now in a precarious state.

No power or telephone communication possible yet, but the power outage is not for the whole of Bartow, it appears to have been confined to specific areas, rather than a general outage.

We are now in the eye of the storm.

The trees are being bent very severely and a couple have come down on the shoreline of the lake.

A lot of branches have come off trees.

The amount of water that is falling is causing a local river to start to break its banks.

Visibility is poor as a result of the constant wind and rain.

As you can see [picture below right], palm trees are taking a bit of a beating, but houses are benefiting from careful preparation.

The time this storm took to arrive has given us plenty of time for boarding and general preparation.

Official advice has been good with regard to items required to last out the storm, but stores had very quickly run out of flashlights, batteries etc and generators were flying off the shelves (purchaser assisted, not wind assisted).

View of palm trees at Mr Robertson-Burnett's B&B

Fuel (they call it gas here) is a big issue, with many fuel stations running out and little prospect of deliveries for some time.

Electricity and telephones are now not working, so communication is a bit difficult as the rain is still heavy and wind is still gusting severely.

We are currently stuck in our hotel in Orlando.

There has been a curfew in place in Orange County since 1400 yesterday.

There were winds gusting to 50 miles an hour all night.

The eye of the storm is now closer to the Disney resort and the wind is now constant and there is no traffic on the roads.

The airlines are not giving any details of when the airport will re-open.

There has been no contact from any Virgin reps about when we will be flying back.

All local Virgin offices are closed and the lines have not been forwarded to the UK.

The storm is now reaching us, the winds are very strong with driving rain.

Power has been lost now and the streets are completely quiet.

Some branches and fences are down and the wind is very noisy.

Many people were already in the storm shelters prior to the storm's arrival, but most people seem to prefer to ride it out at home.

We moved to Florida for our 1 July takeover of our bed and breakfast inn, and this is our second hurricane, despite the fact that there has been no hurricane through here for 40 years prior to 'Charley'.