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VERO BEACH - The earliest effects of Hurricane Frances swept ashore at about 7 Friday night with squalls and wind, building on and off into Saturday morning.
About 4 a.m. Saturday, a heavy band of rain and wind swept the city. Power flickered off for a few minutes, but remained on by 8 a.m. Saturday. The outer bands were predicted to slap the state's southeast coast throughout the day, with landfall of the eye expected Saturday night.
At daybreak, the streets were vacant as the pavement dried off from the first rains. The skies above were gray and a steady 30 mph wind blew from the north. The Intracoastal Waterway was covered in whitecaps, but no flooding had been reported. The worst of the storm remained over Grand Bahama Island, about 60 miles east of the coast, moving at 6 mph.
At 7 a.m., Indian River County emergency management coordinator Nathan McCollum said most roads in the county were open, although some debris had fallen. He said as power and cable television went out, he would broadcast hourly updates on a local radio station.
With the storm already being felt, he used his cable television connection to issue a warning. With the storm in place and ready to strike, it was too late Saturday morning to take flight.
"Stay safe, stay in your home," he urged. "It's now the time to stay where you are. No more time for evacuation, no more time for preparedness, now is the time to hunker down and wait for this to pass. What you're seeing this morning, it's just gradually going to get worse throughout the day."
McCollum planned his first full briefing for news reporters for 10 Saturday morning.