Fla. Orders More Than 1 Million Coastal Residents to Evacuate As Hurricane

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Fla. Orders More Than 1 Million Coastal Residents to Evacuate As Hurricane Frances Approaches

Vehicles travel west over the Intracoastal Waterway in Sharpes, Fla., leaving the Cocoa Beach area Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004. Three-quarters of a million people in Florida were told to leave their homes by Thursday afternoon as Hurricane Frances inched toward the U.S. mainland. States of emergency were declared in Georgia and Florida. .(AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove)
09-02-2004 9:10 AM
By TIM REYNOLDS, Associated Press Writer

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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- More than a million people threatened by Hurricane Frances were told to clear out Thursday, and residents scrambled to board up homes and stock up on water ahead of what could be Florida's mightiest storm in a decade.

A hurricane warning covered much of the state's eastern coast _ about 300 miles from Florida City, near the state's southern tip, to Flagler Beach, north of Daytona Beach.

The warning meant hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph were likely by midmorning Friday _ three weeks after Hurricane Charley, another Category 4 storm, raked the state's western coast with 145 mph wind, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing 27 people.

Most of the residents who were told to leave were in South Florida _ 300,000 in Palm Beach County, 250,000 in Broward County and 320,000 in Miami-Dade County.

[wyethwire]

1. did they evacuate these guys

from the Miami Dade Canvassing Board

[freetobegay]

4. Is this supose to be funny? Because it's not

Some of us are still trying to recover from the last hurricane. There is nothing funny about it or political. We are talking human lives here!

[jpak]

2. This one is going to be bad

It's going to go right up the Peninsula and through part of the Panhandle.

Most of the state is going to get hammered.

I really hope this thing doesn't get out in the Gulf and regain strength...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. they're gonna miss * speech

[Dover]

5. Bush vs. Frances

Bush vs. Frances

Exactly two months before Election Day, President Bush holds a theater-in-the-round in the Garden tonight, accepting his renomination while laying out "vision," etc.

Within hours of his speech, however, Hurricane Frances could come crashing into Florida, one of the biggest battleground states, threatening to distract our gaze from the Bush-Cheney-McCain send-off. And John Kerry heads for another, Ohio.

As the Big Apple grows small in their rear-view mirror, the GOP ticket embarks on a cross-country tour starting tonight in Pennsylvania and continuing onto Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin...cont'd

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/grind/