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2.5 Million Told to Flee Fla. Hurricane
By TIM REYNOLDS
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (AP) - Residents and tourists in cars, trucks and campers clogged highways along the state's Atlantic coast on Thursday, fleeing inland as mighty Hurricane Frances threatened Florida with its second battering in three weeks.
About 2.5 million residents were told to clear out - the bigges evacuation request in state history - ahead of what could be the most powerful storm to hit Florida in a decade. Other people in the 300-mile stretch covered by a hurricane warning rushed to fortify their homes with plywood and storm shutters, and buy water, gas and canned food.
Already a Category 4 storm with 145-mph winds and the potential to push ashore waves up to 15 feet high, Frances could make itself felt in the state by midmorning Friday.
At 2 p.m. EDT, the hurricane was centered 410 miles southeast of West Palm Beach and was moving at close to 13 mph.
This could be the first time since 1950 that two major storms have hit Florida so close together. On Aug. 13, Hurricane Charley splintered billions of dollars worth of homes, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands and killed 27 people when it tore across the state.
Charley's example - and Frances' tremendous size - prodded people like Linda Silvestri, 58, to get out of the way. Silvestri, who lives in Palm Bay on the central Florida coast, headed inland to Gainesville to be near a hospital because she just received a kidney transplant.
"I hope I have a house when I get back," she said.
The hurricane warning covered most of the state's eastern coast, from Florida City, near the state's southern tip, to Flagler Beach, north of Daytona Beach. Forecasters could not say with certainty where Frances would come ashore, just that it would strike late Friday or early Saturday.
About 14.6 million of Florida's 17 million people live in the areas under hurricane watches and warnings.
Residents and tourists streamed inland in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Traffic backed up for miles on sections of Interstate 95, the main north-south highway along the state's east coast, and was also heavy on parts of I-4, which crosses the peninsula to connect Daytona Beach, Orlando and Tampa.
Geoff Connors of Fort Pierce sat in a line of about 50 cars slowly merging onto I-95 in Fort Pierce. He had enough cash and clothes to get through about five days, though he wasn't sure where he would end up.
"I figured it was smarter to get out of here now. It was a snap decision," Connors said.
Most people who were told to leave were in South Florida - 300,000 in Palm Beach County, 250,000 in Broward County and 320,000 in Miami-Dade County. All of Miami Beach, with its Art Deco hotels and flashy nightclubs and restaurants, was under an evacuation order.
The storm and the evacuations it forces are certain to spoil Labor Day outings and make a mess of holiday travel across the Southeast.
Erika and Brian Marwood, who moved from Colorado to Orlando two months ago and huddled in their bathroom with glow sticks and candles while Charley rushed overhead, made their way this time to a Holiday Inn in Tifton, Ga.
"We thought we were doing a good thing getting away from the snow, but there are no hurricanes in Colorado," Erika Marwood said.
Gov. Jeb Bush asked his brother President Bush to declare Florida a federal disaster area and make storm victims eligible for recovery aid.
Federal officials promised they had enough people and supplies in the state to handle two disaster-relief operations at once.
"We were successful with Charley because we were massive, overwhelming and fast. For this event I want us to be massive, overwhelming and fast squared," said Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
People flocked to airports, hoping to get out before all flights were grounded. Some trudged through long lines at ticket counters only to find their flights had been canceled. Hotels and motels inland filled up, and gas stations ran dry.
Florida rescinded tolls on major roads and said lanes on some highways may be reversed to handle the evacuation traffic. State officials hoped to avoid a repeat of the mess during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, when 1.3 million people were told to evacuate the state's east coast and traffic backed up 30 miles or more.
The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral was ordered completely evacuated for the first time because of the dual threats of high wind and storm surge.
Many businesses along the Atlantic coast began closing Wednesday. Stores that were open were stripped of bottled water and canned goods, and long lines formed outside home supply stores as people hoped for a chance to buy scarce plywood or generators. The arrival of a delivery truck was met with raucous applause in Palm Beach County.
Jenny Stimpson, 32, joined hundreds of others at a Wal-Mart in Stuart hunting for last-minute supplies but could find only ice. She said she bought 25 bags because "everywhere you go, you better grab something because it won't be there if you go back later."
Frances is as strong as Charley, and twice its size, with hurricane-force wind extending up to 80 miles from its center, said Stephen Baig, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Frances is also about twice the size of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, the Category 5 storm that destroyed much of southern Miami-Dade County.
The last time two major storms hit Florida so close together was 54 years ago, when Hurricane Easy hit the Tampa area and Hurricane King struck Miami about six weeks later. Neither storm was as powerful as Charley or Frances.
See also : http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Still going to be causing a lot of damage, dropping a good 10-20 inches of rain, but it is a little less intense than originally forecast, though the size (same as Texas) and speed (it's moving very slowly) make the potential for flooding damage nearly as bad as the wind damage. Glad to see watching CNNj does teach you some things.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I spoke to smith yesterday. He and his family have the option to remain, so they are taking that option. They have backup generators, plus a house full of refugees from the last one, and i thjink pretty much everyine is staying put.
smith intends to ride the storm out wiuth his animals in the barn. he expects power to go off sometime on Saturday morning, and then to be without contact for up to 3 weeks with more phone line chaos.
he's said he will get a snail mail out to one of us, probabaly ron, as soon as he can. I told him instead to worry about keeping safe from disasters, and to forget about us all until he is secure
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I'll be watching the weather reports and hoping it veers away from you.
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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People have ever built their homes in places prone to disasters..... Bases of volcanoes, low country near rivers that flood more than often, on tracks that tend to allow storms like hurricanes and tornadoes to inflict their wrath with greater frequency.
What I don't understand is why do people just rebuild in the same place?
You would think they would get sick of all the heartache.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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People rebuild in unsuitable places, perhaps, because they love the 600 or so days between the catastrophes. The government helps, too. Say you have a farm on a river's flood plain. The Corps of Engineers builds levees that confine the flood waters, forcing the water away from its old expansion points. Then the levee breaks. And if one lives near water of any kind, banks won't finance a house purchase without flood insurance, available from the Government at incredibly low cost considering the level of risk. We used to own a house on a real flood plain, flood insurance for which ran $27.00 per year! Six months after we sold it, a winter storm broke through the levee and (among other things) left a four-foot-diameter piling in the living room. The flood insurance paid to rebuild the house, raising the foundation by some six feet. Cost more to pour the new footings (I'm told) than it did to build the entire house. And that's your tax dollars at work if you live in the U.S. d
"Remember what the Dormouse said:
"Feed your head; feed your head."
--Jefferson Airplane - WHITE RABBIT
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For regularly-updated reports, see http://www.weather.com
Latest reports are saying that Frances is now down to a category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph with higher gusts. Therefore less intense than Hurricane Charley, but unfortunately it is only moving very slowly across Florida and is accompanied by rain, so there are inland flood threats and also widespread power outages.
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TygerBoiSammy
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: January 1970
Messages: 57
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OMG! Like Robby lives up in the northwest part of florida almost in Alabama, and that monster is heading right at him.....
I'm kinda glad I'm in Baltimore right now, even as boring as it is, but.....
smith, Robby, all you guys in Florida, keep your heads down. I'm scared for you and praying you'll be okay.
HUGS
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Looks like most of the damage is going to come from flooding now, rather than wind damage. Still going to cause a lot of problems for a lot of people, but at least the storm is less intense and less violent than some people were expecting. It was down to a Cat 2 by the time it hit the coast, by the time it hits Robby's place there is a chance it won't even be classed as a hurricane, anymore. Fingers crossed, for everyone...
In other natural disaster news, last night we had an earthquake here in Japan. I haven't read the reports yet so I don't know where the epicentre actually was, but we had two earthquakes, one lasting 10 seconds and the second lasting maybe 15-20 seconds. Where I live they weren't very intense, not even knocking anything over, but you could definitely feel them and quite possibly they caused more damage closer to the epicentre.
We also have Frances' oriental cousin Typhoon Songda forecast to head in this general direction in a few days' time. Initially it was predicted to head towards Taiwan, but now they are saying it is heading west, just below southern Japan, right before it decides to turn around boomerang north-east all the way up the Japan Sea, I'll be watching that one carefully...
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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