Florida Braces for Hurricane Frances
MELBOURNE, Fla. – Bracing for a monstrous storm, residents and tourists clogged shelters or made last-minute preparations Friday as Hurricane Frances churned toward the Atlantic coast, where the state’s second pummeling in three weeks could begin as soon as Saturday. About 2.5 million residents were ordered to evacuate – the largest number in state history.
The slow-moving storm’s core was now expected to hit Florida Saturday afternoon or evening, instead of early Saturday as had been earlier predicted.
Frances had weakened Friday into a strong Category 3 storm packing 120 mph winds and the potential to push ashore waves up to 14 feet high. Its top sustained winds were down from about 145 mph on Thursday, but forecasters said the weakening could be fluctuation typical with large storms and Frances could regain its former strength.
If it did, it could be the worst storm to hit the state since Andrew in 1992.
At 8 a.m. EDT, the hurricane, with wind still at 120 mph, was centered in the Bahamas, some 260 miles east-southeast of the lower Florida east coast and was moving west-northwest near 9 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 85 miles from its center.
“I hope people don’t take comfort in the fact that” Frances has weakened, Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday. “The storm is very unpredictable. … We still don’t know exactly where landfall will be.”
The Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport was almost empty Friday morning with just a few people waiting to board flights before the airport closed. Meanwhile, at Miami International Airport, officials were urging hundreds of stranded passengers who were hoping to get flights out Thursday night or Friday morning to relocate to shelters.
Airport spokesman Marc Henderson said, “It’s difficult to house this many people, and the airport is not a shelter.” He said buses were being provided to transport passengers to shelters.
Although he hadn’t seen any problems, Henderson said he can only imagine the anguish stranded passengers must be feeling.
“Obviously if you’ve been here all day and can’t get out you’re going to be frustrated,” he said. “We’re trying to alleviate that. We would rather get these people to a shelter instead of having them wait in line thinking they may get out and it never happen.”
The American Red Cross is offering temporary housing to those looking to avoid the impending storm.
“Basically, this is already going to be a larger deployment of human and material resources than it was during Hurricane Andrew,” said Carol Miller, spokeswoman for American Red Cross. That hurricane cost the organization $81 million dollars.
The Red Cross is still trying to raise money to pay for its services during Hurricane Charley. That cost the group about $50 million, and it has raised $31 million so far.
“We want to make sure that the disaster relief fund stays healthy,” Miller said.
At its peak during Charley, the organization fed more than a quarter million meals a day and opened 250 shelters that housed over 10,000 people.
Some media is reporting that shelters are full, but Miller says residents should call their local Red Cross or 866-GET INFO to find available shelter locations.
Early Friday, streets in Port St. Lucie were quiet, with almost all businesses boarded up. Many of them left messages for Hurricane Frances.
A pool supply company in Fort Pierce had a boarded-up storefront, with “God bless this place. Good luck to all,” scrawled in orange paint along the plywood. In Port St. Lucie, another business had “Hey, Frances, make my day” written on it. And in Stuart, a large truck and recreational vehicle tire store had its electronic sign flashing “Go away, Frances.”
Frances’ landfall in Florida would represent the first time since 1950 that two major storms – defined as ones with wind of at least 111 mph – have hit Florida so close together. It comes on the heels of Hurricane Charley, which hit on Aug. 13 with 145 mph wind and inflicted billions of dollars in damage to homes, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and causing 27 deaths as it crossed from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic.
With its imposing size – a cloud cover about as big as the state of Texas – and slow movement, Frances had the potential to ravage the state even if its winds don’t regain the 145 mph speed. Forecasters said the slower the storm moves across the ocean, the longer its winds and rain could linger, increasing the possibility of serious damage.
“The good news is for the procrastinators out there, that buys you a little more time, so take advantage of it,” said Jaime Rhome, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. But, he warned, a slow moving storm like this could bring 10 to 20 inches of rain.
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 the core would strike late Saturday.
About 14.6 million of Florida’s 17 million people live in the areas under hurricane watches and warnings.
Gov. Bush estimated 2.5 million residents were under evacuation orders in 15 Florida counties based on the state’s projections of people living in evacuated areas. Individual counties reported at least 1.32 million residents ordered evacuated.
The governor 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.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged state highways, leaving a stream of lights into the evening. Traffic backed up for miles on sections of Interstate 95, the main north-south highway along the state’s east coast, and was heavy along Interstate 4, which connects Daytona Beach, Orlando and Tampa in central Florida.
“I’ve got half my house in my car,” said Doris Johnson, a retiree who waited outside a shelter with her husband, hauling a pile of blankets, pillows, and water. “I just want it over with, and hope and pray no one gets hurt.”
While a hurricane leaves some people terrified, it stirs up a feeling of excitement among others.
“I’m eager to see what doesn’t happen,” said Lane Barrs, 13, of Vero Beach. He, his mother and sister made a rest stop on the way to St. Petersburg, where the family will ride out the storm with other relatives. “We boarded up our house, but all my stuff might still get blown out the window.”
Ashley Barrs, 17, had some of her most valued possessions in the car – a few days worth of clothes and a 1-year-old goldfish, Fabio.
“I’m scared. I’m trying to be brave, but I’m still scared,” she said. “I’m just afraid of losing everything we have. Some of that stuff is irreplaceable.”
The storm and the evacuations it forced were spoiling Labor Day trips and disrupting holiday travel across the Southeast.
In Melbourne, the 300-room beachfront Holiday Inn Beach Resort had been fully booked until guests started checking out Thursday under an evacuation order. General manager Tim Michaud estimated at least $100,000 in lost revenue.
Florida rescinded tolls on major roads and said lanes on some highways could 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.
Frances was 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 was or Frances could be – a scary thought for many Floridians.
“We’ve took enough clothes for three days,” said Revonda Barrs, 44, of Vero Beach, who stopped at a Port St. Lucie gas station. “We boarded our dog and we basically left all our other possessions in the hands of God.”
Other Southeastern states were keeping an eye on the storm, as well as dealing with refugees from Florida. Georgia officials expected traffic to worsen throughout the day Friday and dispatched 22 emergency units to the southern part of the state to help motorists and deal with vehicle breakdowns. Alabama was preparing for heavy rain and wind with the storm’s remnants forecast to come through next week.
Meanwhile, the ninth named storm of the season formed early Friday in the far eastern Atlantic. Tropical Storm Ivan was located about 610 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands and had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph.
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On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Florida Emergency Management: http://www.floridadisaster.org