1 million warned to evacuate in Florida coast

'SCARY, SCARY THING'

Hurricane Charley will hit gulf coast today.

By Mitch Stacy ~ The Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. -- Officials warned about a million residents and tourists along Florida's Gulf Coast Thursday to get out of the way of Hurricane Charley, saying parts of Tampa's downtown and nearby areas could be submerged by the massive storm surge likely when the hurricane strikes today.

"It does have the potential of devastating impact. ... This is a scary, scary thing," Gov. Jeb Bush said.

The evacuation zone stretched along Florida's west coast from Key West to north of Tampa.

Charlie was expected to pass west of the Keys at Florida's tip early today before hitting the Tampa Bay area in the afternoon with winds up to 120 mph, heavy rain, tornadoes and the dangerous storm surge, said Hugh Cobb, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. With winds that high, it would be a powerful Category 3 hurricane.

Residents of the Tampa Bay area, where the eye is projected to hit, southward to the Naples area were told to expect a storm surge of 10 feet to 13 feet. State meteorologist Ben Nelson said the surge could reach 16 feet in the Tampa area if Charley reaches 120 mph wind.

The bulk of the evacuations were in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, which include Tampa and St. Petersburg, a city that sits on a peninsula.

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.

"MacDill Air Force Base will probably be mostly underwater and parts of downtown Tampa could be underwater if we have a Category 3," Nelson said. "In a Category 3, you can almost get to the point where Pinellas County becomes an island."

Heavy traffic flowed across the three Tampa Bay bridges linking Pinellas with Hillsborough and the mainland.

"There will be a period of time where if you stay behind and you change your mind and you want to be rescued, no one can help you. We aren't going to go out on a suicide mission," Pinellas Emergency Management chief Gary Vickers told people in the evacuation zone.

Charley became a Caribbean hurricane Wednesday, moving past Jamaica and over the Cayman Islands. It skirted Cuba's small Isle of Youth Thursday night on a path that would take it over Havana en route to Florida.

At 7 p.m., forecasters said Charley had top sustained winds of about 105 mph, up from 90 mph earlier Thursday. It was moving north-northwest near 17 mph and was expected to strengthen, meteorologists said.

Hurricane force winds extended outward 30 miles from the eye; tropical storm force winds went out 125 miles.

The hurricane bore down after Tropical Storm Bonnie blew ashore Thursday morning on the Florida Panhandle with winds estimated near 50 mph. Bonnie failed to produce any reported flooding, but the one-two punch of tropical weather was highly unusual. Storms have not struck so close together in Florida since 1906.

About 6.5 million of Florida's 17 million residents were in Charley's projected path, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.

The evacuation request was Florida's biggest since 1999, when Hurricane Floyd brushed the state's east coast and prompted officials to urge a record 1.3 million to evacuate.

Many residents prepared for the worst, buying plywood to board up homes and stocking up on water, canned food and batteries to ride out the hurricane. Beth Ciombor of Sarasota was at a Home Depot loading two sheets of plywood onto the top of her minivan while her 2-year-old son watched.

"I'm on the verge of tears. It's so frightening," she said.