``We worked all day,'' Rolando Sanchez, 59, said of the nine hours he spent Friday hauling furniture and rolled- up rugs to the second floor of his Hyde Park home.

By Saturday he was breathing easier but still regretting the hole he had knocked in the wall while hauling a grandfather clock to higher ground. Playing musical chairs with the furniture again would take another few hours.

Sanchez was not the only resident facing the task of undoing preparations for a storm that missed our shores. Many others spent hours taking down plywood, fishing furniture out of pools and examining holes drilled into walls to attach plywood.

As with Christmas decorations, however, not everyone rushed to take down their hurricane preparations.

``I'm lazy,'' said Joe Goodsir, 74, of Clearwater. ``I'm not going to take it down until I have to.''

Goodsir noted that a tropical depression - now Tropical Storm Earl - is brewing in Charley's wake.

``I'm going to wait and see what happens and keep the windows boarded until it's clear to me that the next hurricane is not going to come this way,'' he said.

Other folks were left with loads of equipment or supplies they bought for the storm.

Jill and Dave Shepard of south Tampa had purchased a sump pump to save their family's newly built mini-movie theater from flooding, should it occur. Sump pumps, which cost about $90 to $400, often are used to pump water from basements.

``I've never seen people take it [a storm] so seriously,'' said Jill Shepard, a Hyde Park resident of more than 40 years. ``People really thought that this was going to be it.''

Shepard plans to save the equipment for the next big storm.

William LaMartin, 58, bought a gas-powered generator a couple years ago for such occasions.

``It's a letdown,'' he said, that he did not get to use it.

A few streets down, Sadie and Rob Pariseau were dealing more with the aftermath of Pariseau's Puny Hurricane Party than anything else.

``The worst part for us was cleaning the kitchen,'' Sadie Pariseau said.

Reporter Peggy Lim can be reached at (813) 731-8135.