Jeanne is bigger, stronger, faster, as it aims at Treasure Coast
Jeanne sweeps Florida with wind, rain; East Coast residents told: `Stay in place.’
People who live in Florida know the risks associated with life on the Peninsula It’s no secret that Florida is a sitting duck in Hurricane Alley. Rarely has that been more true than this summer.
Having spent all of August in Miami, I got a first-hand view of what life can be like when a hurricane approaches. Here in Texas, you can drive inland in hopes of avoiding the full impact of a storm. In Florida, though, you’d almost have to drive to Atlanta to accomplish that. Living on a peninsula, there is only so much you can do. If you can’t get out early and drive into Georgia or Alabama, you might as well just board the house up and hope you remembered to pay the insurance premium.
The time to flee now past, state officials urged residents of Florida’s Treasure Coast to ride out Hurricane Jeanne at home or wherever they are now.
”Now is the time to find a safe place and stay there,” said Gov. Jeb Bush said at 4:10 p.m. EDT Saturday. “This is a time that we in Florida have become all too familiar with — which is wait for the storm.”
At the same time, he and others issued final-hour pleas to residents farther north along the coast and inland:
Take final precautions now. This storm is more powerful than Hurricane Frances, which caused significant damage on the Treasure Coast — the area between Palm Beach and Cape Canaveral. And hurricane force winds could extend 100 miles inland.
”They are really going to get clobbered up there,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County.
Fortunately for Miami-Dade County missed Charlie, but 2 1/2 hours to the west of us on Florida’s southwest coast, 22 people died. I left Miami to return to Houston a couple of days before Frances blew through, and that one did impact Miami-Dade County. Ivan hit the Panhandle, and was every bit as destructive as 1992’s Andrew was to the Miami area.
And there is still another month left in hurricane season….
