Hurricane Frances brought rain squalls, wind gusts and power outages to the Tampa Bay area Saturday night, offering a wet prelude to a miserable Labor Day weekend.
With Frances forecast to take a full 24 hours to cross Florida, tropical storm force winds and drenching rains are expected to stay until early Monday. That could leave some spots with a foot or more of rain.
Authorities ordered the mandatory evacuation of at least 250,000 people living in mobile homes in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.
Many residents, their emotions already wrung out by Hurricane Charley, decided to ride out the storm at home. By late Saturday, more than 4,000 people in the five-county area were in shelters. At Bay Mobile Home Park in St. Petersburg, some residents were not responding to the county's evacuation order.
Vince Morrica evacuated to Ocala for Hurricane Charley. But this time he did not want to abandon his pets - a beagle named Beta and an unnamed cockatiel - and his fifth wheel camper.
"The gusts that came through this morning started rocking the trailer, but I'm not too scared," said the 39-year-old Illinois native. "I'm happy to be in Florida. No snow."
At the Fort Brooke Mobile Home Park in Tampa, Ricardo Santucci, 45, looked over his mobile home and said, "This is nothing but a Pepsi can with freakin' furniture in it."
He had no plans to leave the periwinkle blue single-wide. Santucci said he rode out Hurricane Hugo and other storms in even flimsier buildings when he lived in Puerto Rico.
"If it is meant to take me away, let it be," he said. "If Mother Nature wants you, there's not a building strong enough to ... hold you."
Other residents left home with little hesitation after evacuations were ordered.
"I didn't sleep at all last night," said Charlsey Trammell, 73, who was in a shelter at West Hernando Middle School. Trammell depends on a wheelchair because she has degenerative arthritis. "I don't need to be going through a hurricane alone."
By Saturday night, wind gusts of up to 50 mph were lashing the region and tens of thousands of homes had lost power.
Most of the outages were the result of trees and limbs being blown into power lines, said Duane Vann, a spokesman for the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative.
The far outer bands of Frances began moving across the Tampa Bay area Saturday afternoon. Then the storm stalled for several hours off Florida's east coast. Frances' slow progress made officials wary of what may be its costliest punch: rain.
"The slower it goes," Pinellas County Administrator Steve Spratt said, "the more rain we're going to get."
Up to 20 inches of rain in some areas is possible, said National Weather Service meteorologist Ernie Jillson. He said it is impossible to predict when the fiercest rains will fall.
Bands should become stronger and more frequent by early this morning, and will continue rippling through the five-county area all day, Jillson said.
Winds of 30 to 50 mph will be common, and gusts up to a hurricane-force 75 mph may also be felt.
"There will be a lot of gusty winds, and we could certainly see damage to trees, weak structures and mobile homes, as well as power outages," Jillson said.
Closures and cancellations across the region will be widespread today, from Tampa International Airport to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays game. Residents began preparing Saturday for a long stretch indoors.
Managers at Blockbuster video stores described heavy business, with some people renting six or seven videos at a time to get them through the storm.
Scott and Gaby Gramling of St. Petersburg visited a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse to buy supplies. But their purchases had nothing to do with storm preparations.
"I don't want to get cabin fever," said Scott Gramling. "We're going to get socked in with the rain. So this is the time to do the indoor projects. It's my "Honey do' list."
Some churches in the Tampa Bay area canceled services for today, but many more planned to go on as usual. But church leaders urged parishioners to put safety first.
"If it's real windy and rainy, we encourage people to stay home," said Father Aiden Foynes of St. Cecelia Catholic Church in Clearwater. "We're not sure what tomorrow will bring."
Times staff writers Anita Kumar, Mike Konrad, Michael Sandler, Bill Varian, Lorri Helfand, Jean Heller, Jay Cridlin, Jade Jackson Lloyd, Jennifer Liberto and Steve Thompson contributed to this report.
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