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Sandbags fly as city hunkers down
By JANET MARSHALL © St. Petersburg Times, published September 25, 1998 At the VA Medical Center at Bay Pines, meanwhile, evacuation plans were delayed by a day for 220 patients in the low-lying nursing home and domiciliary buildings. Initially scheduled to move Thursday, the patients will move to other buildings on the campus today, spokesman Larry Christman said. Throughout Seminole, a community that prides itself on its high ground and safety during storms, residents acted as if their streak of dodging hurricanes was about to end. Ninety minutes after City Hall opened at 7 a.m., the city's supply of 400 sandbags was gone. The staff got 1,000 more in the afternoon, but residents claimed the last of those by 4 p.m. "We're all out and our sources are all out," said Roy Otto, general services director. "People are taking this storm seriously." The city canceled its popular Friday night Music in the Park series. The 42nd Street Big Band will play Oct. 2 instead. The annual Seminole Sound Spectacular, a marching band competition, also was canceled. Eighteen bands, including 15 from Pinellas County, were supposed to perform Saturday. The event has been rescheduled for Nov. 7. "It's a big loss for us," band director John Davis said. "It's the single largest fund-raiser we do." The threat of Georges was a boon for Shurgard Storage on Seminole Boulevard. "People are renting storage units because I'm above the flood plain," manager Michael Spencer said. "I've just been doing an unusual amount of business." As residents tried to protect their belongings, the staff at Seminole Vo-Ed Center moved computers out of portable classrooms and into sturdier buildings. Maintenance crews cleaned out gutters on the grounds with hopes of facilitating better drainage. "It's a little scary," director Clayton Snare said. "Most of the campus is tin roofs and portables. It's susceptible to being pretty well devastated, but so far, we've been pretty lucky."
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EMINOLE -- City Hall ran out of sandbags, two popular events were canceled and a school principal tried to protect his computers Thursday as Hurricane Georges inched toward Florida.
