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Hurricane Charley menaces Cuba, Floridians flee
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-13 10:47 Hurricane Charley brought heavy rain to Cuba on
Thursday and more than half a million Americans on Florida's coast were told to
evacuate beachfront homes, trailer parks and islands lying in the storm's
path.
Charley's winds rose to 105 mph as it passed the Isle of Youth, south of the
Cuban mainland, heading toward the Havana area and the fragile Florida Keys
island chain beyond.
Weather forecasters said it could strengthen to become a "major" hurricane,
with devastating power, overnight.
The wind from Tropical Storm Bonnie generates
waves on the beach at St. George Island, Fla.
[AP] | In western Florida's heavily populated St. Petersburg-Tampa region, more than
600,000 people were told to leave seaside communities, mobile homes and
low-lying areas in advance of Charley's arrival on Friday, the Florida emergency
management office said.
Charley had "the potential to be the one we've all been warning about,"
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told reporters in the state capital, Tallahassee. "If
people are told to evacuate they should take it seriously," he said.
The governor, brother of US President Bush, said 2 million people could be
affected as Charley pounds the tourist resort island of Key West and then curves
into Florida's west coast.
Cuban authorities also evacuated thousands of people.
"The news is not good. ... By the looks of it we will have to face a category
three hurricane," Cuban weather forecaster Jose Rubiera said in a television
broadcast, referring to the five-category Saffir-Simpson scale used to rate
hurricanes.
A category three storm, with winds between 111-130 mph, can blow down large
trees, destroy mobile homes and flood low-lying coastlines up to 8 miles inland.
Tropical Storm Bonnie, meanwhile, faded back into a depression as it moved
through the Florida Panhandle toward Georgia, threatening floods in an area
already soaked by rains, which is likely to get more of a bashing from Charley.
Charley was expected to hit Cuba full force on Thursday night, bearing a
10-14 foot storm surge, and to pass near Havana and its two million people
around midnight. Heavy rain fell on Havana's deserted streets by early evening.
Key West, 90 miles north of Cuba, could see hurricane conditions by morning,
the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
EVACUATIONS IN TEN COUNTIES
Ten counties on Florida's Gulf coast, from just north of Tampa to Key West,
ordered evacuations.
Traffic was extremely heavy on bridges across Tampa Bay and highways heading
toward central Florida. Residents who did not plan to leave stocked up on
plywood, food and water.
The hurricane center said Charley could send a 10-13 foot tidal surge onto
the west Florida coast, including Tampa Bay where flooding could cause
considerable property damage.
At MacDill Air Force Base, which sits on a low-lying peninsula in Tampa Bay,
1,500 nonessential military personnel and dependents were ordered out. Fifteen
aerial tankers and transport planes were flown to safety at a base in Kansas.
In the Florida Keys, tourists and residents living in mobile homes were
evacuated from the lower half of the 100-mile-long chain of islands off the
state's southern tip. Shelters were opened.
Key West was nearly deserted. Shopkeepers boarded up windows and
spray-painted messages on the boards. "We ain't never scared," said one.
"At this point, if you're staying here you need to hunker down and take care
of your family," said Key West Police Chief Bill Fortune.
In Cuba, home to 11 million people, Havana residents left work at midday to
form long lines to buy food and water. Officials warned people to secure
windows, stock up on water, candles and torches and move cars from flood-prone
areas.
Residents feared ramshackle colonial-era buildings in downtown Havana might
not survive, and President Fidel Castro's communist government prepared to
evacuate 120,000 people if needed by setting up shelters in schools.
Some 2,000 tourists and hotel workers were airlifted from the island of Cayo
Largo (Key Largo) off the south coast.
At 8 p.m. EDT, Charley was 90 miles south of Havana, at latitude 21.7 north
and longitude 82.3 west, the hurricane center said. It was moving
north-northwest at a brisk 17 mph as it passed the Isle of Youth.
Jamaican authorities said one person was killed when Charley swept south of
the island on Wednesday.
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