Frances Pummels Florida

Gov. Bush: Hurricane Weaker, But Still Dangerous

Craig Mayor, 52, and wife Debbie, 39, of Fort Lauderdale wade across a flooded intersection. (Andres Gonzalez -- South Florida Sun-sentinel Via AP)

MIAMI, Sept. 5 -- Hurricane Frances lumbered with agonizing slowness across Florida Sunday morning, flooding streets, felling trees and cutting power to millions of people.

While the force of Frances weakened after it hit the east coast, Gov. Jeb Bush and emergency officials warned Floridians still in its projected path not to underestimate its destructive potential over the next 12 to 36 hours. The storm is expected to dump as much as 20 inches of rain on some areas.

"Sit tight, stay calm and stay in safe shelter," Gov. Bush said at a news conference. "It has been a long wait. I appreciate that people have been waiting and I hope they will be patient."

President Bush declared Florida a major disaster area, making it eligible for federal financial assistance. But officials said it was too early to offer estimates of casualties or of property damage as law enforcement authorities had yet to venture out in many areas. Bush said that roughly 1.9 million homes and businesses were without power but stressed that his information might not be current.

Anecdotal reports from firefighters, eyewitnesses and TV footage suggested limited structural damage so far on Florida's east coast.

At mid-morning, the eye of the storm was doing just what everyone expected, moving in a west to west-northwestward track at about 7-mph. While wind gusts of 124-mph were reported, the National Weather Service said the maximum sustained winds had decreased over the morning from about 105-mph to about 90-mph.

At its current slow pace, Frances's eye was due in the Florida panhandle after 2 a.m. Monday. If it stays on its projected track, it might first sweep across the warm waters of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, regaining some of its intensity, the weather service said.

As if Florida needed more warnings, the National Weather Service put out an advisory about 11 a.m. Sunday concerning Hurricane Ivan, which was reported moving at 21 miles per hour in a northwestward direction toward Puerto Rico. Described as one of the southernmost Hurricanes in history, Ivan could near Florida late next week.

Meanwhile, streets in coastal areas continued filling with water from Frances and flooding remained a huge concern. Winds from Frances lifted tons of sand off beaches onto main coastal arteries, such as A1A, the long roadway that is usually clogged with beachgoers in early September.

And the eye was due to pass uncomfortably close to massive Lake Okeechobee, a body of water with a storied history in the devastating floods of Florida's past. State water engineers are hoping a week of draining and re-shifting water away from Frances's course will lessen the impact of the incredibly wet storm.

To the south, evacuation orders were being lifted in Miami, the state's most populated metropolitan area, which took heavy rains and floods, but escaped the brunt of the storm. Public buses were being marshalled to ferry thousands of Miami-Dade County residents from shelters back to their homes.

The storm's eye is so huge -- a staggering 60 miles in diameter -- and its speed is so slow that forecasters were invoking the word "marathon" to describe the ordeal.

Even before the storm's eyewall -- the big bank of clouds around the eye -- made its first landfall around 9 p.m. Saturday with 105 mph winds near the Treasure Coast area towns of Jupiter and Stuart, Frances had left 2 million people in Florida without power, toppled trees, shredded roofs and lifted boats out of the water.

As the eye heaved onshore at Juno Beach, just south of Jupiter, an additional 10,000 people were stuck at sea on cruise ships because captains had decided not to risk coming to port in Miami.