The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 7

http:tampatrib.com THE TAMPA TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1999 NATIONWORLD 7 HURRICANE FLOYD EVACUATION For thousands, all roads to safety lead west rrr Floyd's track JP- ''PHI 3- Hurricane watch Friday 4 I VaV I- T' Hurricane warning I Ir'i i spW, 2 -r Is pi Tropical Thursday Thf -V-ta storTn warning WA I Witt isr3 'r ill f-MfiM Scr-i'i -v iT A p-r (-B ST Source: National Hurricane CAITLIN HOPE WRIGHT JJf 'MD center Tribunemap Wl-Sr rzzj 1 HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY LV, 'T imf- mm Public schools, the University of South Rorida and Hillsborough Community College are closed today. USF medical clinics will remain open. Hillsborough County commissioners canceled today's meeting and moved it to Thursday. County and municipal offices will remain open. Garbage will be collected as usual.

The U.S. District and Bankruptcy courts in downtown Tampa are closed. All hearings and meetings of creditors will be rescheduled. All hearings before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge C.

Timothy Corcoran III will be held Sept. 29 at the previously scheduled time. The Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA branches will be open limited hours today. Members and guests should call local branches for operating hours. 4 From Page 1 to the Jacksonville Pier with Jessica, 6, and Tres, 3, as the first rain bands inched toward Florida's largest northern city.

This is about as serious as I've ever seen it get," Parker said. Tve never seen the evacuations and school closings." More than 100,000 left northern beaches from St Augustine to Fernandina Beach as officials warned about damaging winds, torrential rains and a storm surge that could flatten houses and bury barrier islands. Bridges to the beaches were closed at 6 p.m. Tuesday except for people with extreme emergencies. Not everyone was ready to give up.

"They say if mandatory, but they really don't put any teeth behind it," said Nelson Deaux, who was covering the windows to his Jacksonville Beach house, one block from the water. At Landmark Middle School nearby, more than 1,000 people were packed into the two-story building. Volunteers helped the elderly settle in at the school. Doctors tended to the infirm. A nurse helped stop a boy's bloody nose.

"These are angels here. They were heavensent," Robert Meixel, 63, said of the volunteers. "How so many people could have so much love in their hearts is unbelievable." For those hitting the highway, the feelings toward others may have been less charitable. Traffic crawled on Interstate 4 into Tampa. "I've heard it's 1-4 pretty well bumper to bumper, coast to coast" in the westbound lanes, said John McShaffrey, Department of Transportation spokesman.

He estimated that traffic was moving as slowly as 30 to 35 mph, making the trip from Orlando to Tampa take much more than two hours. The DOT canceled all lane closures for the 1-4 widening project Tuesday night and hurriedly pulled out all but the most essential construction barriers. Motorists desperate for a place to rest jammed rest stops, DOT spokesman Ron Winter said. Families pulling trailers, boats and wooden wagons sat for hours Tuesday on Interstate 10 heading out of Jacksonville. "This is insane," said Vicki Drake, whose family was traveling in a four-car caravan that included a seat-belted bird.

Asked where they were going, Drake laughed. "We're not sure. Just west somewhere." But what was bad for the highway system was money for the hospitality industry in many areas inland and on Florida's west coast Evacuees from ast far as the Bahamas and as close as St Pete Beach flooded into Tampa, filling up motels and hotels. Travel Lodge at Busch Gardens even waived the motel's no-pet policy in certain rooms. "Normally, we have some severe restrictions on pets.

But we have to be accommodating," said Moctar Ould Lab, assistant general manager of the motel, where 90 percent of Tuesday's lodgers were Floyd refugees. "We can't expect them to leave their best friend behind." Among the lodgers were students and staff from E.F. International Language School on Miami Beach's South Beach. The school evacuated 100 students and 10 staff members in three buses. During Hurricane Georges in 1998, the school's students and professors spent a miserably long night sleeping on the floor in a high school shelter.

"We were not going to repeat that" said Katherine James', director of development for the school. "You can't compare here to going to a shelter." Dozens of Tampa motels and hotels are booked through today. One man even fled St Pete Beach only to check into the Days Inn Rocky Point, which borders Tampa Bay on the Courtney Campbell Parkway. The Hampton Inns and Suites on Fletcher '3' iv 1 POLK COUNTY Public schools, Polk Community College, Florida Southern College and county offices will be closed. The city of Lakeland offices will open today, but both the main and branch libraries and all recreation centers, including Kelly and Simpson Park, will be closed.

PASCO COUNTY Public schools and county government offices will be closed today, but courts will remain open. PHIL SHEFFIELDTrlbune photo The scene on U.S. 192 out of Melbourne was repeated Tuesday on roads leading out of all major east coast cities in Rorida. Shannon Bellinger of Melbourne, heading out of town with a supply of cigarettes and Coke, said, "I've lived here all my life, and this is the worst one I've seen. You'd have to be crazy to stay." Caribbean islands reeling from fury of monster storm "I was content on staying home and riding it out" Giannettino said.

"But because of the intensity of the storm, I decided to leave." Hillsborough officials recommended mobile home residents seek better shelter. "If a mobile home isn't properly secured, it could leave its said John Fischer, a spokesman for the Hillsborough County Emergency Operations Center. State officials asked the county to open shelters to accommodate as many as 25,000 people. "We're being inundated with people fleeing the east coast" Fischer said. "There are no hotel rooms left" Several evacuees spent Tuesday night at a north Tampa Red Cross shelter after finding hotels full.

Renato Castillo of Melbourne spent Monday night in a Tampa hotel with his wife, Anna, and 17-month-old daughter. The Castillos were denied a second night's stay, they said, because the hotel was overbooked. So the family reluctantly spent Tuesday night at a shelter on East Fletcher Avenue. Castillo said he called eight or nine hotels, but none had vacancies. The shelter is "our only choice right now," he said.

"It's better than staying in the car." Staff writers Michelle Pellemans, Rob Shaw, Susan Thompson, Sean Lengell, David Wasson, Jim Sloan, Deborah Alberto, David Pedrelra, Jill Farrell King and Janet Lelser contributed to the report. Information from The Associated Press was Included. Avenue in Tampa was booked with people fleeing the Bahamas, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Ormond Beach. In Polk County, several hotel and motel operators said they were booked solid, too. Mickey Brady, manager of a Cabot Lodge, north of the state Capitol, said, 'Tallahassee is full, and I've heard everything east of here is, too." After finding the Travel Lodge at Busch Gardens on the Internet George and Marianne Hamilton packed up their son, Joey, 9, and dog, Riley, grabbed important papers and left Melbourne Beach at 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday. The trip to Tampa, which normally takes 3lA hours, took almost seven. The Hamiltons considered stopping in Orlando, but reports of heavy winds pushed them to Tampa. "It's a pain in the neck," said George Hamilton, a plumber. "I hate being that far away from our house not knowing what's going to happen." The massive evacuation filled up more than hotel rooms in the Tampa Bay area.

Emergency officials opened 16 public shelters in Hillsborough County alone. Joseph Giannettino, 86, of Port St Lucie was one of 30 people who sought shelter at Eastside Baptist Church in Plant City. It took him, his sister and two friends seven hours to make the drive west They had hoped to find a hotel, but no rooms were available. NASSAU, Bahamas Hurricane-weary New Providence Island expects storm surges of up to 20 feet, and the island is only 7 miles wide. By MICHELLE FAUL of The Associated Press Florida, Georgia and South Carolina watched anxiously as Hurricane Floyd lumbered through the Bahamas toppling trees and power lines, stripping roofs off homes and shoving a roiling sea into streets.

In Nassau, the capital, authorities lost telephone links throughout the vulnerable, low-lying archipelago including Eleuthera, San Salvador and Cat Island where winds reached more than 110 mph and damage was feared to be ex parts of New Providence 6 miles inland, a daunting prospect for an island just 7 miles wide. Vacationers throughout the Bahamas sought shelter in secure hotel lobbies and enclosed rooms. As the power flickered, they dozed on couches and floors, sipped coffee, played cards and waited for the storm to pass. On Grand Bahama, worried residents took rooms at Freeport's Victory Inn, 2 miles from the nearest shore, which had been vacated by tourists fleeing the storm. Most brought their own canned food.

"I think it's going to be really bad," said the inn's manager, Wenzel Armbister. To get through it, he said, "we're having a hurricane party. We've got the bar open and everything." On Paradise Island, 2,000 guests at the sprawling Atlantis Resort sought refuge in a convention center, along with 500 resort workers. "Everyone's really cooperative. They know how serious this is," said Atlantis spokesman Ed Fields.

With one exception a man who watched the hurricane from his eighth-floor balcony residents evacuated their beachfront homes and passed the time with tourists in the ballroom of Nassau's Marriott Hotel. "Enough! Let's get this over with," said a bored Paul Rodamol of Cannes, France, who tried and failed to get a flight out on Monday. Most hotel guests were frightened out of their rooms when Floyd's winds began howling and pelting the windows with tree limbs and debris. "I was woken by what sounded like tin crashing down and got worried when I could feel the whole bed shaking," said Jeannine Bixby of Rumney, N.H. FLOYD Dramatic turn may spare state, but not Georgia, South Carolina 4 From Page 1 Even with the most bruising core of the storm expected to stay at sea, the hurricane posed a potential threat Its most dangerous winds coil around the eye stretching out about 20 miles and a small shift in the storm would bring those winds dangerously close to shore.

"With the storm that close, we could realize some of those winds," said Andy Devanas, state meteorologist "The difference for Florida would be tremendous." The difference between the 75 mph winds expected ashore and the potent 140 mph winds at Floyd's center is significant At 75 mph, the damage is minimal, mainly confined to trees, power lines, signs and small outbuildings. At 140 mph, damage is extreme. Doors and windows can be blown out possibly causing homes to collapse. Less powerful winds will likely cover much of Central and North Florida today. Floyd's bands of thunderstorms could spawn small tornadoes.

At least two were reported Tuesday along the east coast The storm took a much anticipated turn toward the north Tuesday afternoon as a low pressure system started to nudge it away from Florida, putting it on a track to slam into Charleston, S.C., early Thursday morning, just about the same time the last of the sprawling storm finishes its brush with Florida. At 11 p.m., Floyd was centered near latitude 27.7 degrees north and longitude 77.9 degrees west. Some of the bands of squalls started marching through the Tampa Bay area by 2 p.m. Tuesday and were expected to be over by Thursday morning. Nell Johnson can be reached at (352) 544-5214.

tensive. "We can't get through to San Salvador or Cat Island, but we expect it to be bad," said Melanie Roach, an official at a government command center. Floyd ripped roofs off homes and flooded streets on Eleuthera Island, which has a population of 10,000, Roach said. Most residents were safely inside shelters; the island's popular Club Med resort had closed for the season. On the Bahamas' most populated island, New Providence, rescuers fought through driving rain to reach residents of battered houses.

But the debris-strewn streets and 3-foot-high flooding in places made the job difficult The hurricane uprooted 30-foot trees and sent blinding, horizontal sheets of rain through deserted streets. It shoved cars around and snapped palm trees in half. High winds set car alarms screeching throughout Nassau. Several people in Nassau, which is on New Providence, were treated for minor injuries, according to scattered news reports. In northern Nassau, residents a quarter-mile inland reported flooding.

Officials warned that storm surges up to 20 feet could inundate 'J I -1fliiwn im.1i OUERT BURKE7TfIliuha photd Floyd also has forced hundreds of flights to and from Florida to be canceled, disrupting air traffic throughout the Caribbean. Karen Glffln and her daughters Domonlque, 10, and Chanel, 12, of Satellite Beach find shelter at the Brandon High School gym after finding area motels full. At 8 p.m., more than 40 people were In the shelter set up by the Red Cross..