Florida Calls for Hurricane Evacuations
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By JOHN PAIN, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI - Hundreds of thousands of people were told Wednesday to get ready to evacuate as powerful Hurricane Frances crept closer to Florida just weeks after Hurricane Charley's rampage. It would be the worst double hurricane strike on one state in at least a century.
Generators were hefted off store shelves, along with water, canned goods and other emergency supplies as forecasters warned the core of the Category 4 storm with 140-mph top sustained winds was due along Florida's Atlantic coast late Friday or early Saturday. Charley left billions of dollars in damage and 27 people dead when it swept across the peninsula Aug. 13.
"I can't emphasize enough how powerful this is. If there's something out there that's going to weaken it, we haven't seen it," National Hurricane Center (news - web sites) director Max Mayfield said.
About 300,000 residents in coastal areas of Palm Beach County were told to evacuate starting 2 p.m. Thursday.
In Rockledge, about 45 miles southeast of Orlando, Brevard County told at least 50,000 residents to start evacuating mobile homes and barrier islands Thursday afternoon. In Stuart about 85 miles south, Martin County planned to urge up to 7,500 residents to evacuate low-lying areas starting at noon Thursday. More evacuation orders along Florida's east coast were likely.
The Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites) planned to close Thursday and Friday to allow workers time to board up their homes and evacuate if necessary, said NASA (news - web sites) spokesman George Diller. Helicopters and planes left Patrick Air Force Base.
Craig Fugate, director of the state Division of Emergency Management, said steps were being taken for to prepare for large-scale evacuations, including possibly reversing lanes of some highways to accommodate fleeing coastal residents.
Frances was nearing the Bahamas with steady strength, but it was expected to fluctuate in intensity and could become a Category 5 storm with top sustained winds of 156 mph or higher, forecasters said. The storm could hit anywhere from South Florida to South Carolina as early as late Friday.
Hurricane-force winds extended up to about 80 miles from Frances' center, making it about twice the width of Charley and increasing the possibility for damage, forecasters said.
"The lessons of these storms are that all the science in the world and all the technology in the world isn't going to be able to pinpoint exactly where the storm goes," Gov. Jeb Bush cautioned.
Records from the last century show no two Category 4 storms with winds of 131-155 mph hitting a state within weeks of each other, hurricane center meteorologist Rick Knabb said.
The last time two major hurricanes hit Florida in rapid succession was 1950. Hurricane Easy hit Tampa around Sept. 4 of that year and Hurricane King hit Miami six weeks later on Oct. 17. They were Category 3 storms.
Nancy Cuffaro, whose home and pizza restaurant were damaged by Charley, said she was hoping Frances would spare the area still cleaning up and recovering emotionally. She is in Port Charlotte in hard-hit southwest Florida; the greatest danger from Frances is along the state's east coast.
"I know we can't withstand too much. I really don't know what to think here. I'm lost. It's starting to get to me," said Cuffaro, whose restaurant still didn't have electricity Wednesday.
With the memories of destruction so fresh, many people didn't need an official heads-up to begin preparing. About two dozen people lined up Wednesday morning at a Home Depot store west of Miami, waiting to pay for items such as generators, tarps, flashlights and batteries.
A Home Depot to the south in Florida City, ground zero during Hurricane Andrew 12 years ago, more than doubled its daily sales, ran out of generators and plywood and pushed $50,000 worth of lumber out the doors Tuesday, said Lisa Ftiffler, assistant store manager.
"We are completely out of stock of plywood," she said Wednesday. "We are waiting on another truck. We have people since 5 a.m. waiting for generators and the plywood."
North Miami Beach resident Lorraine Lewis bought a small cooking stove in case of emergency but wasn't planning to stick around long enough to use it.
"I have water and plastic and a plane ticket," she said. She said she bought the ticket to New York on Wednesday, planned to cover her furniture with plastic and get out. "It will be too hot staying here without light for days."
At 2 p.m., Frances was centered about 60 miles east-northeast of Grand Turk Island southeast of the Bahamas and 700 miles east-southeast of Palm Beach. It was moving west-northwest at around 15 mph.
With landfall possible on the Atlantic Coast from one end of the state to the other, wary officials watched the clock and forecasts as they grew more refined. Some schools in coastal districts already decided to close Thursday and Friday.
Miami-Dade County, home to about 2.3 million people, would need 24 to 36 hours to evacuate people in low-lying areas, emergency management spokesman Louie Fernandez said. The county's decision on evacuations would need to be made over the next day or so.
State officials worried about finding hotel rooms and shelters for people who may need to evacuate. Many hotel rooms in the southern half of the state are occupied by people left homeless by Charley and out-of-state emergency workers. Some schools and community centers are still being used as shelters.
But Federal Emergency Management Agency (news - web sites) officials said they were ready.
"We have all the operations, all the resources that we need to respond to a major emergency," said FEMA spokesman Justo Hernandez.
With top sustained winds of 145 mph, Charley destroyed or heavily damaged more than 30,000 homes and did an estimated $7.4 billion in insured damage. It was the worst natural disaster to hit Florida since Andrew caused $15.5 billion in insured damage and killed 15 people. |
