Another Hurricane....where do enworlders evacuate to?

Mythtify said:

Well, in a few hours, Florida is going to get hit again. The possibility of a long holiday weekend with out enworld is depressing. Where are we going to evacuate to if Enworld gets zonked? We need a plan people!

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BOZ said:

good luck florida - man, you'll need it.

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Sept. 10, 2004 — By Horace Helps
KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) - Half a million Jamaicans were urged to leave their homes in low-lying areas on Thursday as ferocious Hurricane Ivan swept nearer with 150-mph winds after a deadly charge through the Caribbean.

Authorities said 500,000 people in coastal areas of the south, including parts of the urban sprawl around the capital, Kingston, should move to emergency shelters.

Officials said many residents were reluctant to abandon their homes, fearing looting. Residents of the island of 2.7 million people scrambled to fortify their homes and stock up on supplies.

"This one looks like a killer. If it follows the same path, a lot of us will die," Kingston resident Jefferson James said.

Ivan killed at least 23 people as it roared through the Caribbean, most of them on the devastated spice island of Grenada.

Tourists fled the Florida Keys, while residents of the 100-mile island chain prepared for an evacuation on Friday as Florida braced for a third hurricane strike in a month, following Charley and Frances.

Haiti, an impoverished nation prone to deadly floods and mudslides, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Cayman Islands also got ready for a possible Category 5 storm, only a handful of which have hit the Atlantic-Caribbean basin.

High seas churned up by Ivan battered the Dominican coast and a young man and three children were killed near the capital, Santo Domingo, on Thursday when they were swept away by huge waves while fishing from rocks, officials said.

Ivan weakened slightly on Thursday to a Category 4 storm from a Category 5, but forecasters said it could hit the top of the scale again before reaching Jamaica.

At 11 p.m. EDT, Ivan's center was about 290 miles southeast of Kingston at latitude 15.5 north and longitude 73.3 west, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving west-northwest at 13 mph.

The center's long-range forecast, which is subject to change, had Ivan reaching Cuba, the largest Caribbean island nation, by Sunday, and Florida on Monday.

PROTECTING AGAINST LOOTERS
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson tried to persuade people in vulnerable coastal areas to leave their homes, saying police and army would be out in force to protect against looters.

"If persons do respond quickly, it would result in a reduction of the damage that would accrue," he told reporters.

Some gas stations in the capital ran out of fuel and lines formed at food stores. Schools were closed.

Category 5 hurricanes, the highest intensity on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, are rare but strike with devastating effect. Hurricane Mitch developed winds of nearly 180 mph and killed about 10,000 people when it struck Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998.

Hurricane Andrew, which experts declared a Category 5 after 10 years of study, was the most expensive storm in U.S. history, causing $25 billion damage when it hit Miami's southern suburbs in 1992.

Emergency managers in the Florida Keys ordered evacuation for visitors, a measure taken well in advance because thousands of tourists need time to move recreational vehicles and boats up the only road linking the island chain. The 80,000 residents of the Keys were to begin evacuating on Friday morning.

The Cayman Islands, a tiny British colony and key offshore financial center in the northwestern Caribbean, issued a hurricane warning for its 43,000 people on Thursday, saying hurricane conditions were possible within 24 hours.

Ivan roared into the southeastern Caribbean on Tuesday and slammed over Grenada, a tiny volcanic island of 90,000 people. It flattened or badly damaged homes and devastated the capital, St. George's.

A State Department official said on Wednesday the storm killed 20 people on Grenada, but Caribbean disaster agency officials said on Thursday the death toll was 17.

"We have been hit extremely hard and it is a very tough one for the country and people are dazed at this particular time, but we are trying to handle it as best we (can)," said Prime Minister Keith Mitchell.

Ivan was also blamed for the death of a woman in Trinidad and Tobago and a swimmer in Venezuela. (Additional reporting by Jim Loney and Frances Kerry in Miami, Manuel Jimenez in Santo Domingo and Robert Edison Sandiford in Bridgetown, Barbados)

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Hurricane Ivan, bottom right, and Tropical Storm Frances, top left, are shown in this NOAA satellite image taken on Monday, Sept. 6, 2004. Frances plowed ashore on the Florida Panhandle on Monday, its second U.S. landfall after causing flooding and tearing up homes and boats across the center of the state. About 6 million people lost power and at least four people were killed. Meanwhile, following Florida's bouts with Frances and Charley, Ivan had become the fifth Atlantic hurricane of the year, growing rapidly to a Category 3 storm. At 2 a.m. EDT, Ivan was about 360 miles east-southeast of Barbados with top sustained wind decreased slightly to near 115 mph. A hurricane center projection showed it could reach the Dominican Republic by Thursday. (AP Photo/NOAA)

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