16:49 25Sep2004 RTRS-UPDATE 2-Hurricane Jeanne slams Bahamas on way to
Florida


MIAMI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Deadly Hurricane Jeanne strengthened rapidly
as it crossed the northern Bahamas on Saturday on its way to deliver a
record fourth hurricane strike in one season to densely populated Florida.
Up to 3 million storm-weary Floridians were told to evacuate coastal
islands, mobile homes and flood-prone areas. Others battened down the
hatches one more time, stocking up on batteries, water and gasoline and
shuttering homes, or streamed into public shelters.
Many on the storm-scarred Atlantic coast, emboldened by having survived
Hurricane Frances three weeks ago, vowed to remain at home, an act of
defiance that alarmed authorities.
As Jeanne's 115 mph (185 kph) winds, up from 105 mph (169 kph)
overnight, and 8-foot (2.4-metre) storm surge lashed Great Abaco island in
the Bahamas, a 700-island chain of 300,000 people stretching from Haiti to
off the Florida coast, U.S. officials urged residents not to be complacent.
Gov. Jeb Bush said people living in Florida's coastal areas could not
assume they could ride out Jeanne just because they had survived the
previous hurricanes.
"People on the barrier islands who think they can ride this storm out
should think again," Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, told
reporters. "It is getting bigger and stronger."
By 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), the storm, which has already killed up to 2,000
people in Haiti and 31 in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, was just
west of Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, at latitude 26.6 north and longitude
77.6 west, or 155 miles (250 km) east of Florida.
Jeanne picked up speed overnight and was traveling westward at 14 mph
(22 kph).
The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned the storm, now a strong
Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity,
could strengthen further over warm water between the Bahamas and the
southeastern United States.
Along Florida's Atlantic coast, including the densely populated counties
of Broward and Miami-Dade, 3 million residents were told to evacuate.

MILLIONS IN HARM'S WAY
State officials said computer models showed 4.7 million of the state's
17 million people were in harm's way, and estimated that 1.2 million
buildings could be damaged, leaving around 142,000 families without homes.
In some parts of the likely strike zone near Ft. Pierce in St. Lucie
county, home owners have barely had time to patch over damaged roofs with
blue tarpaulin, or to clear piles of tree limbs and debris left behind by
Hurricane Frances, or the soggy remnants of Hurricane Ivan last week.
"It's horrible. This is just unprecedented," said St. Lucie county
emergency management spokeswoman Linette Trabulsy.
When Jeanne comes ashore on Florida as expected late on Saturday or
early Sunday, it will make history -- the first time since records began in
1851 that Florida has been walloped by four hurricanes in a single Atlantic
storm season. The season lasts from June to the end of November.
Hurricane Charley kicked off a season likely to dent the state's
reputation as a tourist destination when it slammed ashore on the southwest
Gulf Coast on Aug. 13 as a Category 4 storm -- the second most powerful. It
had winds of 145 mph (233 kph), killed 33 people and caused $7.4 billion in
insured damages.
Frances, a weaker but much larger storm with 105 mph (169 kph) winds,
spread destruction along the Atlantic coast on Sept. 5, killing 30 and
causing $4.4 billion in damages.
Ivan, at one point the sixth most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever
recorded, ripped into the Gulf Coast between Florida and Alabama with 130
mph (209 kph) winds on Sept. 16, killing at least 45 people across the
United States and causing up to $6 billion in damages.
"It's all part of living in Florida. You live in California, you deal
with earthquakes. You live in Texas, you deal with drought and fire. You
live in Kansas, you deal with tornadoes. I'd rather live somewhere it's
warm," said Broward county emergency management spokeswoman Alinda Montfort.
In the Bahamas, residents of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco islands, both
still recovering from the ravages of Frances, packed into shelters.
Silbert Mills, chairman of Abaco's disaster preparedness committee, said
there was a feeling of "ubiquitous melancholy" on the island in the face of
the approaching storm.

Saturday, 25 September 2004 16:49:08RTRS [nN25366289] {EN}ENDS