Deadly Hurricane Jeanne strengthened rapidly as it crossed the northern Bahamas on Saturday on its way to deliver a record fourth hurricane strike in one season to densely populated Florida. | Been nice knowing ya, Florida |
Up to 3 million storm-weary Floridians were told to evacuate coastal islands, mobile homes and flood-prone areas. Others battened down the hatches one more time, stocking up on batteries, water and gasoline and shuttering homes, or streamed into public shelters. Many on the storm-scarred Atlantic coast, emboldened by having survived Hurricane Frances three weeks ago, vowed to remain at home, an act of defiance that alarmed authorities. | Just let us know where to contact your next of kin. |
As Jeanne's 115 mph winds, up from 105 mph overnight, and 8-foot storm surge lashed Great Abaco island in the Bahamas, a 700-island chain of 300,000 people stretching from Haiti to off the Florida coast, U.S. officials urged residents not to be complacent. Gov. Jeb Bush said people living in Florida's coastal areas could not assume they could ride out Jeanne just because they had survived the previous hurricanes.
"People on the barrier islands who think they can ride this storm out should think again," Bush, brother of President Bush, told reporters. "It is getting bigger and stronger." By 11 a.m., the storm, which has already killed up to 2,000 people in Haiti and 31 in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, was just west of Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, at latitude 26.6 north and longitude 77.6 west, or 155 miles east of Florida. Jeanne picked up speed overnight and was traveling westward at 14 mph. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned the storm, now a strong Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, could strengthen further over warm water between the Bahamas and the southeastern United States.
Along Florida's Atlantic coast, including the densely populated counties of Broward and Miami-Dade, 3 million residents were told to evacuate. |
