SPRING HILL - Rich and Jan Augello deserted their mobile home in High Point about 8 a.m. Sunday when they and 30,000 other Hernando County utility customers woke up in the dark.
By late morning, power crews were working to restore their power. Then, the lights flickered inside the shelter at Fox Chapel Middle School. But a backup generator kicked in enough power for the Augellos' reading to continue; television screens went blank.
"We are going to ride it out," said Jan Augello, 67. "You don't have too many choices."
As Hurricane Frances roared through Hernando County toward the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, people living in mobile homes, and others who decided their homes might not be safe, were among 1,200 evacuees at six county emergency shelters, including 147 special needs residents at West Hernando Middle School.
They had been ordered at noon Saturday to leave mobile homes and low-lying areas as tropical storm force winds had the potential to rip roofs from their trusses and trees from their roots.
Most seemed resigned to making life in a school cafeteria as much like home as possible.
At Fox Chapel, 131 people made the best of it on the floor, standing in hallways and sitting at lunch tables. That was about 50 fewer than the number who stayed at the school during Hurricane Charley, suggesting to officials that some people chose other means to stay safe this time.
"So far, we have had very few complaints," said Rich Augello, 68. "As long as it does not get any worse, we should be okay."
The Augellos planned to ditch the shelter about 3 p.m. and head to the hospice center, where Jan works. That seemed unlikely, with sustained winds of 40 mph and unrelenting rain.
A ham radio brought the 11 o'clock weather update.
"The rain is coming our way," one woman said before rushing off. "I hope your fingers are clean."
Lunch was served at noon.
At Nature Coast Technical High School, while many tried to ride out the storm with humor, Dee Gaffey, 68, made telephone calls to her children in Longwood and other parts of the country.
She caught up with some of her Brookridge neighbors, who stretched out alongside the bleachers in the gymnasium, and began to knit.
She figured she might knit several scarves by midnight, when she and her 70-year-old husband, Robert, expected to be sleeping in their own bed. She later joked that the ark that Noah built would be better suited for the storm.
"I am going to knit myself a raft or an ark," Gaffey said.
The couple left their mobile home in Brookridge for what Robert Gaffey called prime "Park Avenue" real estate in the Nature Coast gym about 6 a.m. Saturday.
"I always liked a room with a view," Dee Gaffey said. "It is better than staying home and hanging on to the roof.
They were among the 379 evacuees - about 95 percent of them Hernando County residents - according to principal Tizzy Schoelles.
Aside from Dee Gaffey, others among the evacuees read Tom Goes to Kindergarten to children, played crossword puzzles and fiddled with GameBoys. Except for the scampering of children, the only noise came from two televisions at the far end of the gym, past the Gaffeys and Phillips Gibson, 71, of High Point, who said that after Hurricane Charley, he had gotten used to spending time in a shelter.
And with Hurricane Ivan developing off the coast of South America, he figured he might be renewing acquaintances with his fellow evacuees again soon.
"We'll see next Thursday," Gibson said.
The immediate concern Sunday, though, remained Frances.
"The worry is what we will find when we get home," Dee Gaffey said. "At least our most valuable possessions are with us, and that is each other. Our 50th wedding anniversary is next week, and I hope we are not here (in the shelter)."
Ray Stahl, a Red Cross disaster relief worker and retired Federal Aviation Administration investigator, was hoping to be able to attend his grandson's wedding in Atlantic City.
"I just hope I can catch a flight on Wednesday," Stahl said. "But, boy, I don't know."
