Hurricane Frances minute-by-minute

Read from the last page forward to see developments in chronological order.

11:23 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 5, 2004

Joseph and Mary Dlubac celebrated 66 years of marriage Sunday at Palm Terrace Elementary School, being used as special needs shelter in Daytona Beach.

Ironically for the Dlubac’s, a month after their marriage on Sept. 3, 1938, in Rockville, Conn., a huge hurricane devastated their hometown.l”We’d been married for four weeks and I thought I was going to be a widow,” said Mary Dlubac, whose husband calls her “the boss.”

Their secret of 66 years: “We worked together. We laughed together. We cried together and we prayed together,” said Joseph Dlubac.

They hope to return home Monday.

-- The Associated Press

10:32 p.m.

Staci Hollister went outside the lounge to hear her cell phone a bit better. The karaoke was starting and it was too loud to hear inside the bar.

She was in Panama City Beach, waiting on Frances to hurry up -- ha -- past Central Florida so she could drive on down. She is on vacation from her job overseeing halfway houses in New Orleans.

“I thought I’d wake up about 3 or 4 in the morning,” she said. “I thought I could make it, but I don’t want to get down there and be in some kind of Noah’s Ark.”

The advice: Don’t come, the bar there sounds fun enough.

“From the looks of some of these year-round trick or treaters, I dunno,” she said of the Panama City club crowd.

“Call me back later and tell me what to do,” she said.

-- Kelly Griffith

9:59 p.m.

We thought we’d escaped Frances.

Our neighborhood in Maitland was hammered after Charley. So imagine our delight when we returned from a night in a hotel this afternoon to find the power on, the trees standing and the flood waters at bay.

It seemed as if our daughter’s fifth birthday wouldn’t be a total loss after all. This morning Carolyn had said she never invited Frances to her party so why was she here. My wife baked a cake and our neighbors joined us for a celebratory feast.

And then the power went out.

Fortunately the cake was baked. So we gathered in the darkness, ate hot dogs by candlelight and sang Happy Birthday to Carolyn and Frances.

It’s bedtime and there’s still no power, but we’ll survive.

Carolyn’s real party is next week.

-- Anthony Moor

9:49 p.m.

Even as Hurricane Frances battered Florida, many residents were already turning their attention to powerful and strengthening Hurricane Ivan.

Ivan became a Category 4 hurricane Sunday with sustained wind near 135 mph and was moving toward the Caribbean.

It had a projected path across the Antilles and Hispaniola, possibly reaching Cuba by Friday. It could reach Barbados by Tuesday.

It also could be headed for Florida.

“I’m not even taking my shutters down,” said Debbie Bourne, who runs a horse farm outside Sebastian in northern Indian River County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast. “It was too much work. It about killed me to get them all up. Now, we’ve got this other storm, and I’m not going to put them up again.

“It’s really weird. People say we haven’t had a storm like this in over 20 years. Now, all of a sudden, we’re getting them all.”

-- The Associated Press

8:48 p.m.

Thanks to Hurricane Frances, Rhiannon and Jordan Couch got to spend part of their honeymoon sleeping in a middle school office.

The Newberry, Mich., couple came to Palm Beach County right after their Aug. 28 wedding. The first few days on Singer Island went great -- they went parasailing and shopping.

But on Thursday, the couple -- who are both 21 -- were told to evacuate their hotel. They were unable to get a flight home, so they went to a shelter at an elementary school, where they spent a night sleeping on the floor. But police felt the neighborhood was too dangerous for a honeymooning couple, so they moved the Couches to Watson B. Duncan Middle School in West Palm Beach.

There, officials moved them into a private office and gave them a sleeping bag and access to a shower.

“Compared to the other shelter, this is a honeymoon,” Jordan said.

His uncle had teased them about honeymooning in Florida during hurricane season, but Rhiannon said “Everybody said West Palm Beach never gets hit.”

“We will come back,” she said. “We’ll just pick a different season.”

-- The Associated Press

8:16 p.m.

At the City Marina in Fort Pierce on Sunday, eight sail and fishing boats lay on their sides, broken apart by Hurricane Frances. The wharf also was damaged, sending 100 feet of cement and plastic foam scattered into the harbor.

The boats and debris came to rest in an area locals call “The Yachtless Yacht Club,” which Holly Aronson noted was no longer “yachtless.”

“I guess if you have money to have something like that, you have money to lose it,” said Aronson, who weathered the storm in a three-story apartment building across the street.

Aronson’s son, Drew Strohmenger, stood on the wrecked boat slip and scanned the horizon looking for signs of the islands that usually dot the harbor.

“They’re gone,” he said. “Without the trees, the islands will be wiped away.”

Carson McCurdy walked the waterfront in vain looking for his 29-foot Topaz, “The White Trash.”

“Mine’s at the bottom somewhere,” he said.

-- The Associated Press

8:04 p.m.

The old, giant oaks in front of Kurfiss Funeral Chapel on West Street in Clermont have fallen. One has fallen across the walkway, smashing the iron railing on either side of the concrete stairs. Another lay on its side on the hillside, its trunk violently split open, exposing a history of growth, now ended.

--Christy Slewinski

7:18 p.m.

In Cape Canaveral, despite stiff gusts and stinging rain, James and Cathy Smith took a drive around their neighborhood Sunday afternoon to check out Frances’ damage. They said they were glad they did not evacuate their first-floor condo, just a quarter-mile from the beach.

“You never know what kind of a mess you may get into,” by leaving, said Smith, 62. “We would have evacuated if it had been a Category 4, but we kept on top of the news and we decided to stay.”

Paul and Erma Bushek also were glad to have stayed behind; they heated water for coffee and tea on a gas burner Sunday and offered visitors freshly baked brownies.

“When I see the shelters, I’m glad I stayed,” Mrs. Bushek said. “And we’re not traveling on the road, which I think is dangerous.”

The Busheks, who are in their 70s, readily evacuated for Hurricane Floyd in 1999. But Frances was no match and, besides, forecasters kept putting the hurricane’s path well to the south, and they turned out to be right, Bushek said.

-- The Associated Press

6:20 p.m.

By shortly after 6 a.m. the violent winds let up just enough for damage reports and horror stories from the night before to begin to circulate in Palm Beach County.

A 911 dispatcher walked a woman in suburban West Palm Beach through child birth over the phone at 2:16 a.m.

At least one of the county’s 23 shelters that are housing more than 18,000 people here lost power and water over night.

And 584,000 customers county-wide woke up without power and began the excruciating wait without air-conditioning, hot showers or hot meals for normalcy to return.

Officials at the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center have just begun to survey the damage as the final bands of Hurricane Frances move through during the next several hours.

Already, Florida Power & Light is reporting at least 19 major power lines down.

By 2 p.m. Gov. Jeb Bush is expected to make his way to the county to help launch the recovery effort.

-- Beth Kassab

5:51 p.m.

The old familiar sound of chainsaws could be heard in the Wekiva neighborhood of southwest Seminole County.

Even though it’s still raining, folks are starting to emerge from their boarded homes to clear the new crop of debris on their streets and yards.

Or to just stand in the driveway and chat.

There are more cars on the roads. I pulled into a Kangaroo Express store hoping to score a quart of ice cream or something else to serve as dessert because our pantry is rapidly emptying.

But though the lights were on, a sign on the door read “We will re-open Monday at 7:30 a.m.” Before I could back up to leave, three more cars suddenly pulled up.

They had to leave with no ice cream, either.

Anybody know a good dessert recipe that calls for tree limbs?

-- Nancy Imperiale

5:02 p.m.

In Brevard County -- Sometime Saturday night two elderly residents of Barefoot Bay were “helped” out their manufactured home and into a safer location, county commission chair Nancy Higgs said. She wasn’t sure where the pair went but they did ask to be taken to a safer place.

The couple was thought to have been two of the 18 steadfast residents who refused to leave during the mandatory evacuation order a few days ago.

Gov. Bush is scheduled to arrive sometime tomorrow around noon. He will be briefed at the EOC and then may take a tour of the damaged area, depending on the conditions.

-- Alicia Caldwell

4:40 p.m.

OVIEDO - Has Frances said bye bye?

Been waiting for another hurricane band from Frances for more than two hours and nothing yet. Is it possible that the hurricane has blown over?

It’s slightly windy outside, but no rain. It’s the sort of weather that makes people brave -- eager and secure enough to venture outdoors. Perhaps that is why emergency management folks are cautioning television viewers from going outdoors, much less get in their cars and drive around.

They remind everyone that the area still is under curfew, and they don’t want residents clogging up roads before county crews have the chance to assess damage.

But if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the worse part of Frances has bid adios to the eastern end of Central Florida.

-- Maria Padilla

4:13 p.m.

ORLANDO -- Flew in the face of stay-home logic with a quick jaunt from Colonialtown West to Dover Shores, a distance of3 miles or so. What we saw: a few sightseers, many downed branches although not major ones; a slew of uprooted medium-sized trees around Lake Underhill; hit-and-miss working traffic signals; choppy little waves on Lake Underhill; significant shingle damage to Iglesias Espada de Espiritu de Orlando on Robinson Street near Festival Park, and a few stir-crazy souls on bicycles.

-- C. Dewayne Bevil

4:06 p.m.

CLERMONT -- More than 20,000 people are without power in Lake County, including thousands in south Lake. Here, though, in the Greater Hills neighborhood, just off State Road 50 in Clermont, the electricity is still on.

The beans are done and not bad. The kids want to walk the dog in the rain. They can’t.

The eye of the storm is somewhere near Lake Wales right about now. Worry about the people, twice hit so soon, sets in.

-- Kelly Griffith

3:54 p.m.

APOPKA -- After taking Hurricane Francis’ steady pelting of strong winds and heavy rains, Apopka residents who ordinarily might use a cool Sunday morning to wash their cars, manicure their lawns, or shout Amen in church cocooned in their homes early Sunday.

Only the rare motorist was out and about. The main arteries were passable. Side streets were hit and miss. Strong winds had toppled a stately pine tree onto Laurel Street -- which fronts Dream Lake Park, ordinarily home on Sunday mornings to fisherman who cast lines from the shore despite the posted NO FISHING signs -- blocking traffic. But Lake Avenue, which parallels Dream Lake Elementary, and often flashfloods even during ordinary summer cloudbursts, was littered with pinecones and needles, but surprisingly passable.

Along CR 435/Park Avenue, Apopka’s main drag, traffic signals were out. A sign posted at First Methodist Church of Apopka along Park Avenue alerted the faithful that Sunday services were cancelled. Along North Orange Blossom Trail, snapped branches and palm fronds blew like tumbleweeds across streets nearly deserted save for the odd motorist who ignored the mandated four-way stop at inoperable traffic lights. Walls of water blew horizontally across Orange Blossom Trail, hampering visibility.

Businesses throughout Apopka boarded and taped up, and shuttered. The McDonalds along Orange Blossom Trail, which is open 24 hours, wasn’t closed mid-morning Sunday.

-- Darryl E. Owens

3:37 p.m.

KISSIMMEE -- At the Osceola County EOC, County Commissioner Atlee Mercer is getting ready to cook his eighth meal in three days. Mercer’s culinary reputation is so good that Orange County Chairman Rich Crotty jokingly offered to trade three of his top aides to Osceola for Mercer’s services Sunday.

But the EOC has run out of fresh foods, so tonight instead of the Salisbury steak or chicken and gravy the emergency responders have grown used to, they’ll be dining on canned foods -- meat ravioli and green beans to be exact.

“We’re serving about 105 people a night,” Mercer said. “Though that number seems to be growing.”

The EOC has enough canned food to last until Thursday, though the meals may start to look strange after today, Mercer said.

“We’ll have no fresh vegetables, nothing green, Mercer said. “But these guys would be happy, they think I’m a good cook.”

Mercer’s home has power, but he said he’d rather be here cooking.

“I’m happy to do it,” he said. “I bet I feel a lot better than a lot of these guys. They’re working 18 hour days, I’m not.”

-- Tania deLuzuriaga

3:05 p.m.

Despite winds that have torn down branches and limbs and toppled sections of our backyard fence, we continue to have power in our Clermont home.

Having gotten through Hurricane Charley without outages, we were convinced that, this time, we wouldn’t be so lucky.

But so far, so good.

As family and friends check in, we discover we’re in the minority. My brother in Belleview, Marion County, has been without power for a few hours now. My elderly in-laws in Hawthorne, far north of the storm in Putnam County, also are without, and have even had winds strong enough to blow the front door of their home open, badly bending its hinges. Friends and co-workers throughout the Orlando area are also among the have-nots; some closing in on 24-hours without power. We’ve even learned of other Clermont residents, across Route 50 near Lake Minnehaha, who are powerless.

Knowing the force behind the strong gusts of wind and bands of driving rains that are making the giant oaks around our home dance wildly, it seems unfathomable that electricity continues to stubbornly surge through the outlets.

--Christy Slewinski

2:43 p.m.

The worst of the wind and rain is over Volusia and is expected to last for at least another three hours. The rain makes it nearly impossible to see outside at the Deltona Emergency Operations Center. The few glimpses available show brush and branches swaying violently in the wind.

The power came back on, hopefully for good, at 2 p.m. in the Deltona EOC. The waterlogged generator here finally gave out shortly before noon, but the repairman lives down the street. Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies picked him up and brought him to the scene.

Being here is kind of like camp, except I have to take notes.

-- Errin K. Haines

2:24 p.m.

Bob Tremblay and a few of his neighbors on Short Drive in Poinciana were having an afternoon “hurricane party” Sunday.

“Most of the debris stayed where it was at, and we haven’t lost any trees,” said Trembly, who added the rain was falling horizontally because of winds he estimated to be between 75 and 90 mph.

Many neighbors evacuated after boarding up their homes. Power went out about 11 a.m. Because of the grade flooding has never been a problem on the street and that was holding true Sunday.

But some houses damaged by Charley weren’t looking so good.

“There are a few houses that won’t be standing. Frances will finish them off, there’s no doubt in my mind,” said Tremblay.

-- Mark Pino

2:14 p.m.

APOPKA -- The floor was wet where the 4-year-old boy had sat watching a Rugrats videotape in one of the few Central Florida homes that still had power.

He has been potty-trained more than a year, but occasionally -- when he is engrossed in television or a computer game -- he would rather wet his pants than tear himself away. His big sister scolded him, so did his father.

That was when his mother noticed the puddle contained far more water than his bladder could hold.

It became apparent Frances was to blame, not Brian -- who this time really was as innocent as he looked.

The flooding had begun and the crow-eating cleanup was to follow.

-- Sherri M. Owens

2:07 p.m.

OVIEDO -- As the rain and the wind died down I seized the opportunity to encircle Oviedo and assess the damage left by Frances thus far.

One telephone wire was down, a retention pond was close to spilling over, and there was some minor flooding by Oviedo High School.

Some commercial signs had blown away, such as a McDonald’s by Aloma and Red Bug roads. There was limited tree damage; only a handful of new ones had toppled over or to the ground. The piles of tree debris that hadn’t been removed before the storm didn’t budge much with Frances, which is good news.

Some road lights are out. One car pulled into a gas station thinking it was open. But no luck. Save for Sheriff’s and police cars, there is next to no traffic.

Just before this, the rain had been coming down so thick and steady that it looked like a curtain.

A flood of water was pouring out of drainage spouts and was beginning to back up in places. It was coming down so fast that the street drains were flooding.

Out on the front lawn, my feet sank in soggy grass and the water already reached my ankles.

The intermittent rain and wind is allowing the water time to clear out. Let’s see what the next band of Hurricane Frances brings.

-- Maria Padilla

1:52 p.m.

“It was a long night,” said Osceola County Commission Chairman Ken Shipley. “We were very lucky, we didn’t get the winds we anticipated or the rains we anticipated.”

Around noon, Shipley said the county should expect about six more hours of wind gusts up to 70 mph. The curfew is still in effect and looks like it will stay in effect until dawn tomorrow.

-- Rebecca Panoff

1:42 p.m.

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies nabbed a suspected looter of the “slippery” sort early this morning.

Full Sail security guards spotted a man carrying a bag of burglary tools around 4:30 a.m. near the school’s University Boulevard campus.

As the guards chased him, the suspect jumped over a fence and hid in what he thought was a dumpster next to the Orlando Ale House near the intersection of University and S.R. 436.

The dumpster turned out to be a vat full of leftover grease from the restaurant.

“This is definitely the slipperiest looter we’ve arrested in the state of Florida,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Steve Jones said.

-- Melissa Harris

1:04 p.m.

At about 7 a.m. today, the power at the Lyman High School shelter in Longwood went out. That’s when Red Cross officials discovered the main shelter area in the cafeteria was not hooked up to the generator.

Because of the increasing risk from Hurricane Frances, Red Cross officials issued a 4-hour lockdown around 10:30 this morning, wrapping yellow police tape across exit doors. No one will be allowed to walk outside for any reason during the lockdown, even for a cigarette.

Red Cross officials also said they would decide no earlier than 6:30 tonight when to allow evacuees to leave the shelter and return home.

-- Linda Shrieves

12:59 p.m.

Ralph Hopkins stands with a sailor’s stance near the pavilion in Clermont’s Waterfront Park, watching the large, whitecapped waves pummel the shore.

Wrapped tightly in a blue windbreaker with red piping, hood drawn tightly around his face, he marvels at the effect the wind gusts were having on the generally calm water.

“I could get a boogie board and surf the waves on Lake Minneola,” he says with a smile.

Hopkins had headed out of his home at the Clermont Yacht Club at around 9 a.m. specifically to experience the storm’s force.

“I like violent weather,” said the experienced sailor, recalling Bahaman trips. A resident of Florida since 1989, he relocated to Clermont from Altamonte Springs in October. He’s had his share of hurricane experience, including being rescued from his New Jersey home by boat during Hurricane Donna in 1960.

“It’s amazing what Mother Nature can do when she gets her ire up.”

-- Christy Slewinski

12:32 p.m.

Notes from Orange County’s Emergency Operations Center

• The roof is leaking.
• Leaders are expecting two phases of flooding -- the first as Hurricane Frances passes, the second two to three days from now as the water drains into lakes and streams.
• Progress Energy reports 87,939 customers in Orange County without power. OUC reports 42,000.
• Already 3 inches of rain has fallen at the Fire Station 66, the closest one to the EOC.
• High winds have required the county to pull electrical crews, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters off of the roads.
• “We can’t do anything right now except collect data,” said County Administrator Ajit Lalchandani.
• There have been two reports of carbon monoxide poisoning in Orange County.
• There are 7,351 people in all Orange County shelters.
• 61 sewage lift stations are without power.

-- Melissa Harris

12:16 p.m.

George Arnold said the scene from his oceanfront home in Ormond Beach is surreal.

“It’s just incredible. It’s amazing how long this wind has lasted. The ocean is white. It looks like it’s running from south to north. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Arnold, a 46-year-old art dealer, lost power around 9:30 but is surprised it lasted that long. He decided to ride out the storm because his 1920s-era home was built with hurricanes in mind.

“If I were in a newer home I would run for the hills.”

-- Mike Lafferty

11:45 a.m.

I’ve been driving around in the storm, despite the warnings of all the TV people urging us to all stay inside and watch TV, and it wasn’t so bad out there as of 11:23 a.m. A little wind, a little rain, a few branches on the road.

Delivered coffee and cell phone to a colleague covering folks in the emergency shelter at Lyman High School. It was pitch black inside the school gymnasium, since they’d lost power. You could hear babies crying in the darkness and see flashlights bobbing up and down and get glimpses of sleeping bags covering the gym floor.

How long will Central Floridians stay cooped up inside the darkness before they get stir crazy and just all run outside? If the hurricane doesn’t kill us, the waiting surely will.

Any bar owner who decides to open tonight will have more customers than they can handle.

-- Nancy Imperiale

11:44 a.m.

A fierce mid-morning squall in New Smyrna Beach was the storm’s worst, ripping away a piece of plywoodthat was protecting a large window that faces the Indian River at Clay Henderson’s home.

“It’s a great view,” said Henderson, an attorney. “I feel like I’ve got a front row seat.”

Henderson said his boat remained moored to his dock, but the storms increasing fury had him concernedhow long that would last.

“It’s getting a lot worse now. The screaming, the howling, the freight train, all of those descriptionsare here.”

-- Mike Lafferty

11:30 a.m.

As of 11 a.m. Sunday, Progress Energy reported that 16 percent of its customers were without power. Thosenumbers include: