Millions Evacuate Coast Ahead of Floyd
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
.c The Associated Press
COCOA BEACH, Fla. (Sept. 15) - Monstrous Hurricane Floyd moved closer toward the Southeast, sending wind-whipped rains through Florida's deserted streets and leaving coastal residents from Georgia to Virginia bracing for a more severe thrashing.
Early today, near hurricane force winds arrived at Cape Canaveral while the rest of Florida's eastern coast was met with tropical force winds and gusts up to 73 mph, said Jack Beven, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Heavy rain fell from West Palm Beach to Cape Canaveral.
Floyd's eye was expected to continue to swirl over the Atlantic Ocean before making landfall on Thursday at Wilmington, N.C.
'What we've been spared in Florida may just be transplanted to the Carolina coast,' said Jeremy Pennington, also a Hurricane Center forecaster.
At 5 a.m. EDT, the storm's center was located about 110 miles east-southeast of Cape Canaveral. Floyd was moving northwest near 14 mph, and a turn to the north and increase in speed was expected later today.
A hurricane warning remained in effect from Fort Pierce, Fla., at the midway point of Florida's eastern coast, to the North Carolina-Virginia border. A hurricane watch continued from there to Chincoteague, Va.
Forecasters expected rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches in areas along Floyd's path.
'A lot of that is falling over water, but there is some rainfall over north Florida and the Carolinas,' Beven said.
Hours before daybreak, the streets of Daytona Beach were an abandoned, rain-washed grid. In Bunnell, 25 miles north, Flager County officials reported tides at 3 to 4 feet above normal, and up to 1,400 customers were without power.
'We've had a lot of squall lines coming through the last several hours,' said Jon Fillinger, a county emergency management chief. 'We've got gusts, the kind you'd see in a strong thunderstorm.'
After making landfall, forecasters expect Floyd - a Category 4 storm with 140-mph winds - to follow the Interstate 95 corridor north to Wilmington throughout the day.
With its hurricane force winds extending 125 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds up to 290 miles outward, Floyd looked to spare few North Carolina cities from its fury.
'We hope and pray for the best,' said North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt. 'But this looks real mean.'
Nearly 2 million people were told to evacuate the Southeast seaboard as Floyd's path remained uncertain. Florida undertook what officials called its largest-ever peacetime evacuation, with tens of thousands of motorists making an epic, halting journey north. Georgia and South Carolina residents also streamed inland.
Danny Mills, a 34-year-old Kennedy Space Center worker, became stuck in traffic, managing only 15 miles in 2 1/2 hours. He became so frustrated he simply turned around and returned to the Cape, where 102 other workers had volunteered to stay behind.
'You made a mile every five to 10 minutes,' he said. 'There were people going on the sides of the road. People were getting angry.'
Walt Disney World closed early for the first time in its 28-year history, and other resorts also were shuttered. The Navy sent ships to ride out the storm at sea rather than risk damage in port, and military aircraft were flown inland to bases from Maine to Texas.
President Clinton issued pre-emptive disaster declarations for Florida and Georgia to enable recovery efforts to begin as quickly as possible. He also planned to cut short his trip to New Zealand.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency set up a staging area in Atlanta, stockpiling food, ice, water, cots, sleeping bags, blankets, generators, portable toilets, flashlights and plastic sheeting so that they could be delivered to hard-hit areas in a hurry.
Meanwhile, hundreds of airline flights in and out of Florida and Georgia were canceled, and Amtrak suspended train service into and out of Miami, scrambling the plans of vacationers and business travelers around the country.
In Garden City, west of Savannah, Ga., Michael Tarvin and his girlfriend, Robin Hill, took a break at a shopping center after sitting in bumper-to-bumper, three-lanes-wide traffic.
'I'm going west, as far west as I can get,' said Tarvin. |
