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Georges wobbles west
By JOE NEWMAN, SUE CARLTON and CHRISTINA HEADRICK © St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 1998 But it's not over yet. Forecasters late Friday said Georges, some 300 miles wide and gaining strength in the warm gulf waters, would have its greatest effect on the area this afternoon, bringing tropical-storm-force winds and up to 6 inches of rain. "We're going to be on the very edge of tropical storm weather," said Pinellas County Emergency Management Director David Bilodeau. "It looks like this is going to be a brush. "We're not out of the woods yet," said Bilodeau, adding that evacuation orders remained in effect today. While evacuations proceeded smoothly Friday, emergency officials acknowledged part of the reason for the calm: Thousands of the 400,000 Tampa Bay-area residents ordered to evacuate their homes on Friday morning never left. Some shelters were practically empty. Anticipated traffic jams never materialized, and many roads were emptier than usual. As pounding rain and violent wind gusts began arriving in Tampa Bay on Friday evening, there were scattered reports of downed power lines, flying tree limbs and power outages, but no reports of injuries. At 11 p.m. Friday, Georges was about 115 miles west-northwest of Key West, moving northwest at 14 mph and carrying maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. If Georges follows that course, the storm's center, at its closest point, would be about 150 miles from Tampa Bay. Forecasters say it appears headed for the Biloxi, Miss., region, where it could strike with the power of Category 3 winds in about two days. For many Tampa Bay residents, Friday was a day for decision. Those in the most vulnerable areas were required to evacuate at 6 a.m., but many lingered, wondering what path Georges would take. They wanted to wait and watch. The sun came up and they watched the Weather Channel. Evacuation orders -- for 200,000 people in Pinellas County, 175,000 in Hillsborough and 16,000 in Hernando County -- remained in place Friday night. No one except emergency workers was allowed over the bridges to Pinellas' barrier islands after 8 p.m. Some people went on as usual. Tim Quinn did his push-ups on the beach. Frances Saviano swept a few leaves from her porch, her morning routine. A funeral was held at St. John's Catholic Church on St. Pete Beach. At Nick's Beach Bar & Grill in Sunset Beach, the people vowed to stay put. Nick's served coffee from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Friday. Then it was beer. "There's been a massive over-reaction to this thing," said Doug Gurge, a 15-year resident of Treasure Island. "In the last five years, I've been here during storms that have been this bad, and it's been okay. . . . I'd say maybe 35 to 40 percent of my friends have left." Rick Herbert, another longtime resident, added: "The rest of us have been through this too many times to worry about it." Officials would not predict how many people disobeyed the evacuation order. Violators faced 60 days in jail, but police were not arresting them. "I am not going to worry about the people who stay," said Treasure Island fire Chief Charlie Fant. "But they're going to be on their own if it gets so bad we can't help them." At Mickey's Snell Isle Market in St. Petersburg, a sign on the boarded up windows read: "We Are Open." Scott Dyer, who lives in an evacuation area, was inside buying bacon-wrapped filet mignons for a barbecue Friday night. He and his family decided to ride out the storm. "We're just going to kick back and burn some steaks and see what happens," said Dyer, 41. In Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, officials opened shelters Friday morning with a capacity to handle 190,000 residents. By nightfall, fewer than 5,000 people had signed in to the shelters. Pinellas officials closed 20 of their 59 facilities for lack of interest. "It's apparent to us we have a large amount of non-compliance (of the evacuation order)," said Larry Gispert, director of emergency operations for Hillsborough County. Nonetheless, he said, he would rather be criticized for erring on the side of overreaction than the opposite. "Storms," he said, "have done crazy things." It was that -- and personal memories of the craziness of Andrew, of Donna, of Elena -- that prompted most of those who did evacuate. It was a quiet, orderly departure. With several days of warning about Georges, some people had left Thursday night. Others put final touches on sandbag arrangements, then drove their packed cars away before noon Friday. Many streets were empty by then. Genevieve Curtis, who lost everything she owned in Hurricane Camille in 1969, watched two sons and a daughter carefully pack her antique furniture and photo albums in a long rental truck Friday morning. Everything was covered in plastic. They had been working on the project for two days. "When you've lost your baby spoons in storm, then you know what to do," said Curtis. "This storm was too big and too erratic. We may be doing all this for naught, but that's just fine with me. We don't need anybody to tell us to get out." Pat Deady had lost a christening dress saved for her granddaughter in Elena, the Category 3 storm that took many beach residents by surprise in 1985. "This time, we're taking precautions we've never taken before," she said Friday, noting that her neighbors on St. Pete Beach had followed suit. "It's already a ghost town." Periodically on Friday, ambulances and fire engines crawled along the streets in the evacuation areas, with lights flashing and sirens on, warning people by amplified speakers that they had to go. Since school was canceled, buses were used to carry people to shelters. One yellow school bus weaved through a neighborhood in St. Pete Beach, stopping at homes and picking up people, elderly women mostly, who waited at their windows. They carried pocketbooks and medicine bottles and pillows. "I'm not scared to die, but I am scared of falling down and having no one know where I am," Anele Kebleris, an 84-year-old who lives alone, said as she rode the bus. "I am in good hands here. It's fine." There were moments of panic, too. Mary Morris, here on vacation from Britain, had never been through a hurricane. She returned from line dancing to her beach hotel Thursday night and was told to leave. Fast. At 7 a.m. Friday, she was trying to take a taxi to Orlando, but she had no directions and no cash. She was the last guest in her hotel and she was panicky. Tears rose in her eyes as she explained to her cabbie: "I've never been through this. I just came here for four weeks for a rest." On Friday, St. Pete Beach fire Chief Fred Golliner heard a lot of complaints that the panic -- and the evacuation -- were needless. He shrugged it off. "I think you can't be too overcautious about this stuff," Golliner said. "It's been an excellent exercise, if nothing happens, and we'll have found any glitches in our plans. I'm sure there will be a big critique of this after this is over."
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s thousands of Tampa Bay residents evacuated to safety Friday, a reinvigorated Hurricane Georges continued a northwest track that likely will spare west-central Florida the brunt of its fury.
