KEY WEST - On the 85th anniversary of the most powerful hurricane in Key West history, it was time to pray Saturday.
And where better than the hurricane grotto at St. Mary's Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church.
Key Westers have been coming here during hurricane season since the grotto was built by a nun in 1922 in memory of the 800 who died during the "Atlantic-Gulf" hurricane of Sept. 10, 1919.
"I'm here to pray it passes us by," said Leda Andrews, an antique store owner. "The sister said if we pray there'd never be another direct hit. There hasn't been - so far."
"Calm the storms that threaten us," Father Paco Hernandez said during a special prehurricane Mass for 200 people Friday night. "May you use all your powers over the forces of nature."
Come Saturday it looked like those prayers were being answered again. After Charley missed the Keys last month, Ivan appeared to be doing the same.
Officials in Key West weren't ready to declare victory Saturday after Ivan made an overnight jog to the west around Jamaica, but they were more optimistic. The latest forecast models showed Ivan passing 100 miles to the west of the Keys.
"That little jog really helped us out," Lt. Bryan Blankenship, chief meteorologist at the Key West Naval Air Station, said at a midday briefing for officials at the Key West Emergency Operations Center. "I don't see it going back over the (Florida) peninsula," he added, saying forecasts had it likely making landfall in the Tallahassee area.
Ivan's eye was expected to pass southwest of Key West about 2 p.m. Monday as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. With hurricane force winds extending only 35 miles out from the eye, and tropical winds reaching out 80 miles, Blankenship predicted Key West could expect sustained winds of 65 mph throughout Monday afternoon and evening.
However, with a 75-mile margin of error, officials said it was too early to lift the evacuation order that went into effect for the Keys on Friday.
"It's too close to call. Don't tell anyone to come back yet," Blankenship said. "We're going to get the northeast quadrant of a Category 4 hurricane," he added, saying that meant dangerous wind gusts and severe flooding from heavy rain.
The strength and track of Ivan has caused unusual concern among normally defiant residents of the Conch Republic, some of whom evacuated for the first time. Key West officials estimate that slightly more than 50 percent of the city's 26,000 residents have evacuated in the past two days.
"Normally we run about 25 percent," said Mayor Jimmy Weekly.
In case disaster struck, emergency measures were in place, he said. Even so, Key West would need all the help it can get. All local hospitals were closed Saturday and patients who could not go home evacuated to Miami. A voluntary staff was on call, but only for triage in case of major storm injuries.
While Key West businesses remained mostly boarded up except for some local bars, street corner grocery stores and a number of gas stations, the mood Saturday was more relaxed. Bars that had said Friday they would be closed for the weekend remained open at lunchtime Saturday.
"We're not planning to close," said Craig Thompson, bartender at Jack Flats sports bar on Duval Street. "We think it helps the morale of the community."
