Frances weakening but still dangerous
Florida counties under mandatory evacuation orders
Posted 03.09.2004

MIAMI, Florida -- Hurricane Frances continued to weaken and slow down early Friday, but Florida officials took no chances, issuing mandatory evacuations for parts of at least a dozen eastern counties.

The storm -- twice the size of Hurricane Charley, which slammed Florida three weeks ago -- was downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 3 hurricane late Thursday night, and by 2 a.m. Friday its winds had decreased to 120 mph (192 km/h) from a peak of 145 mph (232 km/h).

"Don't read too much into that because that's still a very dangerous Category Three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

"I think we've finally seen one of these fluctuations that we've been talking about. And we may well gain some of that strength back in the next 24 hours."

Florida residents in the storm's path boarded their homes and jammed highways and airports Thursday to escape the massive storm.

Interstate 95 northbound toward Jacksonville was packed but moving as thousands of residents and fled low-lying coastal areas.

At 5 a.m., the hurricane -- still packing sustained winds near 120 mph with higher gusts -- had crossed over Cat Island in the Bahamas and remained just east of Eleuthera Island, which reported sustained winds of 81 mph.

The storm is also about 285 miles (460 km) east-southeast of Florida's lower east coast.

"While aircraft and radar data indicates that Frances has become somewhat disorganized, it is still a strong Category Three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale," the 5 a.m. NHC advisory stated.

Storm surge flooding of 6 to 14 feet was possible on the west side of Eleuthera Island and the north side of Grand Bahama Island.

The storm was moving west-northwest at 9 mph (14 km/h), and is expected to continue to slow over the next 24 hours.

Forecasters expected the center of the storm to be near or over the northwestern Bahamas later in the day, according to the 5 a.m. advisory. Tropical-storm force winds should begin affecting the southeastern coast of Florida by Friday evening, with the core of the hurricane crossing the coast Saturday night.

Rain from the hurricane also should begin pelting southeast Florida Friday. Up to 20 inches of rain was possible from the storm, Mayfield said. He predicted "massive power outages" over the Florida peninsula.

Officials in at least 12 eastern Florida counties have ordered some residents in particularly vulnerable areas to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Frances, according to Dave Bruns of the Florida Emergency Management Agency.

Residents living in low-lying areas, on barrier islands, in mobile homes and homes damaged by Hurricane Charley are affected by the evacuation orders in most of the counties. Four other counties have issued voluntary evacuation orders..

"There are I think 2.5 million people potentially that are in these evacuation areas, which is the largest number that's been impacted at least during my tenure as governor," said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was elected in 1998. He has already declared a state of emergency.

Over 7 million people live in the 12 counties, but only a fraction of the populations are under evacuation orders.

Several inland counties that are in Frances' projected path have not issued evacuation orders.

Mayfield said meteorologists still don't know exactly where the storm will make landfall, "but everything we see says we have a good hurricane track forecast."

"Those strong winds and heavy rain will go rolling across the peninsula," he told reporters from the hurricane center Thursday night.

Hurricane Frances is expected to severely impact motor vehicle traffic along Interstate 75, Interstate 4, Interstate 95, and Florida's Turnpike.

"We still don't see anything to make us think it will significantly weaken," Mayfield said.

Hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles (130 km) from the center of the storm and and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 185 miles (295 km).

The center issued a hurricane warning stretching about 280 miles, from Florida City north to Flagler Beach, including Lake Okeechobee. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch were in effect for the middle and upper Florida Keys, from south of Florida City southward to the Seven-Mile Bridge, including Florida Bay.

A hurricane warning remained in effect for the central and northwestern Bahamas.

In Orlando, there were still a few vacancies among the city's nearly 110,000 hotel rooms, said a representative of the Orlando Convention and ' Bureau. But she added late Wednesday afternoon, "We're pretty booked."

Patrick Air Force Base, on the eastern coast of Florida near Melbourne, was evacuated Thursday and the commander of a fighter wing near Miami ordered his aircraft moved out of the hurricane's path.

The naval air station at Jacksonville also moved aircraft out of the area.

Residents lined up outside hardware stores for supplies to secure their coastal homes before leaving. Those heeding the calls to go ran into slow traffic moving west or north to escape the looming storm.

Hospitals and schools in the areas affected by the evacuation orders were shut and evacuated, and hotels were rapidly filling. Officials also suspended tolls on highways and bridges that were to be used for evacuations.

The Florida Highway Patrol director, Col. Chris Knight, said authorities were prepared to make part of the Beeline Expressway, connecting the coast to Orlando, one way "if it's necessary."

"It depends on how much the back-up is on I-95 in Brevard County," he said.

Knight said the patrol also had contingency plans to make Interstate 10, carrying traffic west from the Jacksonville area in north Florida, one way if needed. None of the highways had become one-way by late Thursday night.

Frances pounded Turks and Caicos Islands overnight, disrupting power and forcing residents to move inland.

NHC deputy director Ed Rappaport said Frances threatened to be more dangerous than Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 hurricane that slammed Florida's opposite coast Aug. 13, killing 25 people.

"This is a much bigger storm than Charley was, maybe two to three times the size," he said. "There'll be a large area of damage when this comes ashore."

Rappaport said that Frances already covers a larger area than did Hurricane Andrew, the Category 5 storm that crushed south Florida in 1992.

"It is likely to be a much wetter storm than Andrew was," he said. "One reason is that it's bigger than Andrew and another is that it's more slowly moving."

Category 4 hurricanes have winds of 131 mph (210 km/h) to 155 mph (248 km/h), storm surges of 13 to 18 feet, and cause extreme damage, according to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. Category 3 hurricanes have winds from 111 mph (177 km/h) to 130 mph (208 km/h).

Two Category 4 storms have never struck the United States in the same year in the 133 years the NHC has been collecting data. The last time two major storms -- Category 3 or above -- hit Florida in the same year came in 1950, with Hurricane Easy and Hurricane King, both Category 3 storms.