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Friday, Aug. 13, 2004

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  An expected massive storm surge could devastate coastal and low-lying areas in the Sarasota, Port Charlotte, Tampa and St. Petersburg, and everything from waterfront condominium towers to vulnerable mobile homes was in danger.

Many Tampa Bay area streets were deserted as workers were told to stay home or head to shelters.

If it remained at its current strength, Charley would be the strongest hurricane to hit Florida since the Category 5 Andrew hit south of Miami in 1992. Hurricane Mitch, which stalled over Honduras in 1998, also was Category 5 with sustained wind over 155 mph.

The storm surge could reach up to 20 feet in the Charlotte Harbor area if Charley struck with wind of 145 mph, state meteorologist Ben Nelson said.

The main airports in Tampa and Sarasota closed at noon, and Tampa's Busch Gardens and Adventure Island theme parks were closed. In the Orlando area, Walt Disney World closed early, while Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando planned to close during the afternoon. Saturday's preseason game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cincinnati Bengals was postponed.

All residents of MacDill Air Force Base, on another peninsula in Tampa Bay, were ordered out with only essential personnel remaining. MacDill is home to U.S. Central Command, the nerve center of the war in Iraq.

By noon, Charley's outer bands were already dropping rain on southwestern Florida, a few hours after bringing occasionally heavy wind and rain to the lower Keys as the storm's center passed to the west of the island chain. There were no immediate reports of major damage.

Earlier, as it blew through the Caribbean, Charley had been blamed for at least four deaths, three in Cuba and one in Jamaica.

Chunks of corrugated sheet metal were ripped from the roof of Marlen Perez's modest home in Havana.

"The wind was howling, and I was screaming, 'Oh my God, oh my God.' Pieces of the roof were falling everywhere," said Perez, 39. "... I thought the walls were falling down."

At 1 p.m., the hurricane was centered about 70 miles south-southwest of Fort Myers and was expected to reach the coast near Charlotte Harbor later in the afternoon.

It was moving toward the north-northeast near 20 mph, meteorologists said. Hurricane force-wind extended outward 30 miles from the eye; tropical storm-force wind went out 125 miles.

Evacuation shelters in Florida were filling to capacity as residents and tourists looked for somewhere safe to ride out the storm, and the evacuation could potentially could be the largest in state history, officials said.

Gov. Jeb Bush said he had sought a federal disaster declaration from President Bush, his brother, and urged residents to stay wherever they were.

"This is not the time to be getting on the interstate. It is time to seek a safe place to be with family and friends inside of your region," the governor said.

A shelter at Sickles High School in northwestern Tampa was full to its capacity of 500 at the breakfast hour. Windows had been reinforced with screens and tarps to prepare for the storm.

"I'm scared that we're going to go home and nothing is going to be there," 20-year-old Amanda Kellogg said as she played blackjack with four friends, their suitcases, bedding and other possessions piled beside them.

Charlotte County's emergency operations center in Port Charlotte was closed.

About 1,000 Florida National Guard members have been activated, and another 1,000 were being called up.

The hurricane was arriving in Florida a day after Tropical Storm Bonnie came ashore in the state's Panhandle and quickly moved north. Three people, including a child, were killed and 29 injured Friday when a tornado hit a North Carolina trailer park.

About 6.5 million of Florida's 17 million residents were in Charley's projected path, including about 700,000 elderly people, officials said.

All the west coast of Florida's peninsula was under a hurricane warning, as was the lower Florida Keys. Tropical storm watches and warnings extended from the middle Keys to Oregon Inlet, N.C.

Georgia Next

After Florida, Charley was expected to head north along Georgia's coast, arriving in South Carolina around midday Saturday. Campers were urged to leave Georgia's Cumberland Island, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford called for a voluntary evacuation of low-lying areas along his state's southern coast.

The hurricane's predicted track could take the storm into lush fields of corn, cotton and soybeans, as well as large cattle, poultry and hog farms from Florida into Virginia. Vegetable, greenhouse and citrus growers in Florida faced the first impact.

Florida's evacuation request was its biggest since 1999, when Hurricane Floyd prompted an order for a record 1.3 million people to evacuate the state's east coast. Charley's evacuation could break that record, said Craig Fugate, the state's emergency management director.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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