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Waiting. Watching. Weathering.

Roofs went flying and power cut out as winds tore through the county. But as of Sunday afternoon, no injuries were reported to officials.

Hurricane Frances took a slow path to Citrus County. But once it arrived, it wasted no time wreaking havoc on homes, businesses and utility lines.

Progress Energy Florida Inc. on Sunday reported wind gusts of 66 mph at the nuclear plant complex in Crystal River and sustained winds of 40 mph. The entire county received heavy rain. The majority of Citrus was without electricity. And countless tree limbs and branches littered roads and yards.

Damage reports came in spades. Wind gusts ripped a metal roof off Pete's Pier in Crystal River. A tree fell on a house in Hernando; no one was hurt. The wind severely damaged the Chevron station at U.S. 41 S and Eden Drive. And a huge tree blocked Highland Boulevard in Inverness just east of Citrus Memorial Hospital.

In early reports to the county, 10 businesses reported structural damage, with nine homes reporting damage from falling trees, as of late Sunday afternoon. No injuries were reported.

Sunday afternoon, with hours of wind and rain ahead, the Emergency Operations Center in Lecanto lost Internet access and began relying on television reports for news. At the center, a tree snapped and crashed through the windshield of a car belonging to Marybeth Nayfield, administrator of the county Health Department.

A damage assessment flyover is planned for 9 a.m. today by the Sheriff's Office so that the Department of Public Works can determine where to start the cleanup.

But there was no time to ponder that Sunday afternoon. County Administrator Richard Wesch and County Commission Chairman Josh Wooten left the Lecanto Government Building on Sunday, preparing to check on the county's shelters, which housed 1,012 evacuees.

As Frances made its way toward the west coast of Florida, the hurricane threatened to spawn tornadoes, flood low-lying areas and rip apart mobile homes. County officials imposed a curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. today, mainly to keep residents off the roads without working stoplights, but also to prevent looting. Saturday night, a burglar hit five stores in Crystal River, trying to take advantage of a community holed up in fear of the storm.

"I think it's going to be a long night," Wesch said.

The Labor Day weekend got off to a slow start. The hurricane meandered west toward Palm Beach County as rain bands slammed Florida's east coast.

But if Frances wasn't moving very quickly Saturday, the people in Citrus certainly were.

A voluntary evacuation order for all mobile home residents and people living in low-lying areas was scheduled to take effect at 2 p.m. Saturday. But at noon, county emergency officials changed that order from voluntary to mandatory.

People paid heed. Three shelters opened - Forest Ridge Elementary School in Beverly Hills, Inverness Middle School and Lecanto Primary School - and within an hour 88 people had registered there.

By 7 p.m., with the weather still relatively calm and Frances still barely moving west, the number of people at the shelters grew to 445. By 9 p.m., officials had opened a fourth shelter, Citrus High School, and the number of shelter-seekers surged to 653.

At Coach's Pub & Eatery in downtown Inverness, waitresses joked that they were serving customers their last meals.

By 11 p.m., 716 people had registered in the shelters.

The storm made landfall about 1 a.m. Sunday in Martin County, but rain bands ahead of the eye already had been hitting the North Suncoast for hours. In downtown Inverness, the first howling wind came through just after 2 a.m. The wind came and went through Sunday's early morning hours.

Hanging moss on oak trees seemed to be the storm's only victim at that point.

Parts of Crystal River lost power briefly after 6 a.m. Sunday. Downtown Inverness had several power surges during the early morning hours.

Emergency officials decided to open a fifth shelter, Lecanto Middle School, sometime before 7 a.m. About 30 minutes later, they decided to close the Citrus High shelter because it has no generator.

"This being a long storm, we felt like that might be a problem," said John Colasanti, the school system's health and safety specialist.

At 8:22 a.m., many Inverness restaurants were open, though rain was beginning to soak the region.

At the Huddle House near State Road 44 and U.S. 41 S, golden brown hashbrowns, bacon and sausage patties sizzled on the griddle, while waitresses served up side dishes of toast or grits topped by squares of butter.

The place was packed with people betting that breakfast could be their last hot meal for a while. A silver clock above the griddle stated: "Any Meal, Any Time." The restaurant's speakers played the Surfaris' classic hit Wipe Out.

Waitress Heather Reynolds balanced plates of hot food behind the counter while answering the phone.

"Yes, we're open," she said on one call, and then hung up.

By 9:30 a.m., with the worst parts of the storm still ahead, officials announced that people going into shelters would not be allowed to leave.

Smaller branches and tree limbs scattered across Inverness neighborhood streets, but two people were still seen walking the Withlacoochee State Trail.

The winds stiffening, much of downtown Inverness lost power at 10:15 a.m.

Tom Pierce, who lives in the Pritchard Island neighborhood off Gospel Island Road in Inverness, heard a short lull and took his boxer, Jake, outside for a bathroom break.

"Got a break here," he said. "Got him out real quick."

By 11 a.m. conditions had worsened, and Little Lake Henderson's white-cap waves roiled like a sea. Just a hundred feet away, Maria Ruska and her son, Patrick, 14, said they would stick out the storm in a mobile home they would not leave.

"We're just watching the news," she said, "hoping for the best."

Meantime, a sheriff's deputy used a chain saw to slice a tree that had fallen across the westbound lane of County Road 486, a half-mile west of U.S. 41 N.

Progress Energy, one of Citrus' three power providers, reported at least 4,800 of its 30,000 Citrus customers were without power as of noon.

Power outages were reported in Lecanto, the Withlapopka Isles of Floral City, Dunnellon and Crystal River by noon. The Highlands neighborhood in Inverness was reporting no phone service, county spokeswoman Jessica Anderson said.

By noon, 844 residents had moved into the county's four shelters.

A few structure fires were put out by firefighters, while roofs blew off some homes and businesses. At 12:27 p.m. the awning at the Crystal River Marina fell off and landed in South Square Plaza. At 12:31 p.m., an Inverness mobile home roof blew off. At 12:37 p.m., a Hernando home was crushed by a tree.

About the same time, the Chevron gas station at U.S. 41 S and Eden Drive reported that parts of its roof had blown off, while the Wal-Mart in Homosassa reported having sign debris surrounding it.

No one was injured in the incidents, Sanderson said.

Around 2 p.m. the wind blew enormous metal sheets across the parking lot at Pete's Pier in Crystal River. The wind smashed a sheet about 12 feet long and 3 feet wide into a utility pole. The gusting wind only minutes earlier had ripped these metal sheets from the roof of the nearby marina.

The only piece left attached to the structure was a 25-foot section. Part of it was hanging off the side of the marina.

As the wind gained in intensity, the sheet began to flutter and groan. Then a burst of wind peeled it off from the marina and sent it hurtling toward the pavement.

The main Bank of Inverness building on U.S. 41 S also suffered roof damage. Workers were on top of the roof Sunday night making preliminary repairs.

By 5 p.m., winds of 60 mph had ravaged the county, and officials were expecting their speeds to increase through the night, topping off with gusts of 75 mph, until midnight.

In response, emergency personnel, road crews and utility workers pulled off the road. No one was expected back out until winds died down sometime around 4 a.m.

"Now, it's a matter of riding out the storm," Sanderson said.

Times staff writers Raghuram Vadarevu, Barbara Behrendt and Colleen Jenkins contributed to this report.