EAST COAST HIT HARD: Frances finally brings high winds and heavy rain; millions lose power. Bay area shuts down in anticipation of steady rain and flooding.
By TAMARA LUSH, SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER and CRAIG PITTMAN
Published September 5, 2004
PORT ST. LUCIE - After stalling for hours over the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Frances finally slogged ashore late Saturday, lashing Florida's east coast with heavy rains and high winds before heading across the state.
Even before its 50-mile-wide eye made landfall about 10:30 p.m., the leading bands of the Category 2 storm had knocked out power for more than 2-million people on the east coast, as well as some 25,000 people in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
As the storm pounded east Florida, Tampa Bay area officials prepared for the worst, ordering mandatory evacuations of mobile homes in six counties, closing Tampa International and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International airports and preparing to shut down the Sunshine Skyway and other bridges.
Unlike Hurricane Charley, which hit the state three weeks ago, emergency officials say the greater threat from Frances may lie in its floodwaters, not its wind.
"This water can pick up SUVs and move it hundreds of feet," Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown said. "You cannot fight those waters. They're killers."
As Frances plodded ashore, its wind peeled the roofs off of buildings while its waves washed away part of the Lake Worth fishing pier and swamped the two-lane road onto Hutchinson Island. A 90-patient nursing home in Lake Worth suffered such extensive roof damage that rescue workers evacuated the residents.
Four people were hospitalized in Boynton Beach after breathing carbon monoxide fumes from a generator that was running in a house. No other injuries were immediately reported.
At a Holiday Inn on U.S. 1 in Port St. Lucie, evacuees filled all five floors but fear of the storm drove them from their rooms. Teenagers in do-rags huddled in the stifling hallway next to elderly men with oxygen tanks.
Some played cards, some read books, some listened to music - anything to try to avoid thinking about how Frances was knocking down light poles in the parking lot. Yet the sound of the howling wind still boomed through the hotel's tightly closed windows and echoed in its stairwells.
Frances is expected to lose power as it crosses the state toward the Tampa Bay area late today, dropping to a tropical storm. But forecasters said it could drench isolated areas with as much as 20 inches of rain, causing serious flooding in numerous west and central Florida counties.
And state meteorologist Ben Nelson warned that even a weakened Frances could still cause storm surges of up to four feet in the bay area tonight.
After crossing the Gulf, Frances is expected to take aim at the Panhandle, reaching there late Monday.
"It's going to be a rough ride for the next few days," Gov. Jeb Bush said.
At least two people died in the Bahamas, where the sluggish storm spent hours churning across the islands, slowing its approach to Florida.
Frances is the third named storm to hit Florida in less than a month's time. Hurricane Bonnie fizzled over the Panhandle on Aug. 12, and then Hurricane Charley slammed into Charlotte and Lee counties on Aug. 13.
Unlike Charley, a tight storm with powerful winds that quickly charged across the state, Frances was taking its time and spreading its misery out for miles. Hurricane-force winds extended out up to 85 miles from its core.
Forecaster Jack Beven called Frances the "anti-Charley."
"Charley was very small and compact," he said. "You could fit Charley in the eye of Frances right now."
Fear of Frances - and the recent images of Charley's destruction - had more than 2.5-million Floridians evacuating ahead of the storm. By Saturday night, more than 76,000 evacuees had moved into about 350 state-approved shelters. Another 9,851 evacuees with special needs had moved to 45 shelters that had generators to maintain constant power.
Frances was already taking a toll on the evacuees' patience. Some quickly tired of shelter life. Although shelter managers urged people to stay, some started to leave because they thought the threat was gone when Frances was downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 2 storm.
Rosa Cabrera, a visitor from New York, left a shelter at North Miami Beach High School.
"Shelters are for emergencies," she said. "The threat is not too serious, so I am leaving. I can't stay here one more minute."
About 17 hospitals along Florida's east coast were closed, and state officials said 3,915 patients were evacuated. The Port St. Lucie Community Center turned into a shelter for medically fragile people, many of them elderly.
"It's stressed and chaotic," said Debra Farmer, a public health nurse. "You know, there's a lot of fear. They don't know what's going to happen."
The hall was jammed with six rows of cots, the floor a tangle of oxygen tubes and wiring for medical machinery. A television droned. It had been tuned to the Weather Channel, but the staff grew so concerned at the anxiety that the reports were causing among the patients that someone switched over to a program about sea lions and whales on the Discovery Channel.
A staffer attempted to perk up the mood by engaging a group performance of Singin' in the Rain. But the song petered out.
Meanwhile, hospitals in three counties sent 52 very pregnant women and 51 of their family members to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach. In the first 24 hours, six babies were delivered, including a set of premature twins. Later in the day, eight more babies joined them.
Mother-to-be Dianna Craven watched the rain pound the windows while her 3-year-old daughter Emily gleefully played ring-around-the-mommy. With the due date of her baby girl pegged for Sept. 22, Craven said the only book she brought to the shelter was The Baby Name Book.
"I don't know what her name will be, but not Frances," Craven said with a laugh. "Too messy."
In Orlando, where some of the east coast residents had fled, hotel workers at the Radisson Resort Parkway stuffed notes under doors urging guests to stay in their rooms with the windows shut. They also set up a shelter in the hotel's ballroom that will be open for any guests that prefer to ride out the storm in a windowless room.
Not everyone wanted to flee Frances. The curious and stubborn wanted to stick it out, at least for a while. At noon, the wind was blowing the sand so fiercely on Indiatlantic Beach that it stung like little needles. Still, small clusters of teenagers clung to the boardwalk, laughing and leaning into the wind as the surf crashed nearby.
Tony McWilliams pedaled his bike - slowly - a mile from his apartment to get a glimpse of the raging whitecaps.
"I love the excitement," said McWilliams, 35. "It was hard getting here, but on the way back, I'll just catch the wind." But then the wind caught and broke his bike.
Along Florida's Turnpike, service station manager Rick Huggins vowed to stay open through the storm. He and four employees have slept in a room filled with tires and other equipment since Monday. They expected to sleep there several more nights.
Huggins, who didn't even bother with a windbreaker, said he's not afraid of the wind or the rain. "Twenty years in the Marine Corps didn't kill me, and this sure won't, either," he said.
Even as Frances hovered offshore, state officials were already eyeing a fourth storm threatening Florida. Hurricane Ivan was gaining strength 1,400 miles south-southwest of the Lesser Antilles on Saturday night and was expected to move into the Caribbean sometime Tuesday.
"Ivan's out there," Nelson, the state meteorologist, said grimly. "We've got a week to watch it."
Times staff writers Chase Squires, Sherri Day, Alisa Ulferts, Joni James, Brady Dennis, Jamie Thompson, Louis Hau, Jean Heller and Anita Kumar contributed to this report, which also contains information from the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, New York Times and Associated Press.
Pinellas 
