VENICE - With the hurricane coming, the Beaupre family didn't mope.
They danced.
As Frances swirled toward Florida, several members of the Palm Bay clan blasted the country classic Boot Scootin' Boogie in the Motel 6 parking lot and line danced for other guests. Like many at the motel, the Beaupres (pronounced Bo-pray) were evacuees from Florida's Atlantic Coast - part of a sprawling refugee community that stretched from the western bend of Alligator Alley to the Tampa Bay area.
The show lightened things up.
"We're definitely scared to death," Ginger Beaupre said Friday. She was one of 10 members of the family who fled to this corner of Sarasota County. But "we have to make the best of it. So we're goofy and stupid and trying to laugh."
Florida's demographics seesawed wildly Thursday and Friday.
Some 2.5-million people were told to evacuate the Atlantic Coast for safer havens, wherever they could find them.
Data gathered by the state Department of Transportation rendered the mass migration in hard numbers. The electronic traffic counter on westbound Interstate 10 near Jacksonville normally sees about 1,200 cars between 11 a.m. and noon. On Thursday during that hour, the volume was almost twice that.
During the same hour on Florida's Turnpike in Osceola County, 2,242 cars - four times the usual number - headed north, away from the storm track.
Thousands battled traffic snarls all the way to the opposite coast.
From St. Petersburg south to Naples, motel parking lots were heavily sprinkled with license plates from Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Brevard counties - more or less the predicted bull's-eye for Frances' pending strike.
Many evacuees seemed to have no trouble turning their ordeals into vacations. They lounged by pools, ran pizza delivery drivers ragged and emptied shelves at liquor stores.
"They're piling up steaks and getting ready to party," said Ryan Cook, store director at the Albertsons in Venice, where sales were more than double the normal volume. "My beer aisle is wiped out, just like my water aisle."
At the Airport Inn on the Sarasota-Manatee county line, Cliff Haggen and members of a Vero Beach spearfishing club booked five rooms. Until Frances arrived, he figured he, his wife and daughter could eat, shop and catch movies.
Haggen, who owns a pressure-washing business, brought his spearfishing gear, too.
"I'm not stressing," Haggen said.
In Treasure Island, Melbourne lawyer Tonya Meister camped out at a friend's house with her sister, her mother, her mother's 79-year-old friend, the 79-year-old's 99-year-old mother, a 100-pound black Labrador retriever, a cat, and a guy named Ross from Little Rock, Ark. He's somebody's friend, we forget whose.
They spent the day watching Frances on TV and asking the 99-year-old about World War I.
"We were just thankful to have a roof over our head," Meister said.
Back at the Motel 6, the Beaupres projected warmth and calm.
They congregated outside one of their five $51-a-night rooms, smoking cigarettes and sipping sodas, while their three dogs attracted other guests like magnets. They shook hands, flashed smiles, traded stories. And when some of the other guests panicked about finding rooms for additional nights, the Beaupres offered up their floor space.
"If it's going to keep them safe ..." Ginger Beaupre said.
The Beaupres may be as tight as they come. They live within 10 miles of each other. They eat supper together almost every night.
They survived Hurricane Andrew together, too.
In 1992, they were all living in Homestead, where that killer storm came ashore.
Richard Beaupre, the family patriarch, was in one home with 17 friends and family members. Five men wrestled with the back door to keep winds from blasting it open. He watched as a pickle jar full of pennies got sucked through a hole in the roof.
"Somebody looked up," he cracked, "and said, "Pennies from heaven!"'
One by one, the Beaupres fixed their homes, put them up for sale and started fresh in Palm Bay, near Melbourne.
Ginger Beaupre and her 19-year-old daughter, Toni, were the last to leave Homestead.
A few weeks ago, they bought a three-bedroom fixer-upper and new leather furniture to go with it. On Wednesday, they waited six hours at a Home Depot for the plywood to protect it.
"We don't know what we're going to find when we go back," said Ginger Beaupre, who is unemployed after years as a purchaser for the city of Homestead.
On Thursday, the Beaupres hit Highway 70 west.
Most of them didn't bring much.
Ginger brought her two dogs, two cats and cockatiel. And her mother's ashes.
Ruthann Beaupre brought the self-generating oxygen tank she needs for her emphysema.
"If it wasn't destroyed in Andrew, it doesn't matter," she said. "I brought my husband and my family. That's all that matters."
Richard Beaupre - "Grampy" to his family - brought three framed portraits of his wife, Pat, who died in June. They were married 49 years.
In a poem next to one, he wrote, "I never want to lose you."
The Beaupres plan to head back Monday.
If any one of their five houses is still intact, that's where they'll stay, Ginger Beaupre said.
And if the houses are all gone, they'll start from scratch, she said.
Together.
Times staff writers Jean Heller and Mike Wilson contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at 727 893-8873 or matus@sptimes.com
