About 2.5 million residents were told to evacuate their homes Thursday ahead
of what could be the most powerful storm to hit Florida in a decade. Other
people in the 300-mile stretch covered by the hurricane warning rushed to
fortify their homes with plywood and storm shutters, and buy water, gas and
canned food.
Residents and tourists in cars, trucks and campers clogged highways in
the biggest evacuation ever ordered in Florida, fleeing inland as mighty
Hurricane Frances threatened the state with its second battering in three
weeks.
Already a Category 4 storm with 140 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 5 p.m. EDT, the hurricane was centered 375 miles southeast of West
Palm Beach and was moving northwest at close to 10 mph. Hurricane-force
winds extended up to 80 miles from its center.
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, at 1,000 miles
across, or about as big as the state of Texas - 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 couldn't 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 George W. 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.
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.