87,000 Florida Residents Told to Flee Storm

Gov. Bob Graham late Wednesday ordered the immediate evacuation of low-lying and coastal areas in eight counties in the state’s panhandle, urging 87,000 people to flee the 115-m.p.h. winds of Hurricane Kate.

Late in the day, the storm moved north through the Gulf of Mexico, threatening an area from New Orleans to St. Marks, Fla., just south of Tallahassee.

Earlier, the hurricane had battered Cuba and the Florida Keys, leaving up to 10 dead in Cuba. Many of the low-lying keys were left without electrical power.

Pensacola was one of the most likely targets of the highly unusual, late-season hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which predicted that Kate could be near the Florida coast by late today. At 11 p.m., the hurricane was about 175 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, in Florida’s panhandle.

Police in Pensacola there began urging residents along the beachfront to leave their homes. They patroled the streets with mobile public address systems and systematically went door to door.

“The fact is, we’ve sort of had a dress rehearsal for this three times already, and I’m afraid that might influence some folks not to leave,” said Patrick Howells, spokesman for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department.

This area has been threatened by hurricanes three times already in the last few months--twice by capricious Hurricane Elena, which dodged back and forth through the gulf for several days before slamming into Mississippi, and Hurricane Juan.

“People may be a little reluctant to leave this time, but when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, and that wind starts picking up, we won’t see any problem,” said County Commissioner Max Dickson.

Toward midnight, shelters began filling up, many people arriving with blankets, flashlights and baby food.

All county buildings, including schools, would be closed today, announced county manager Gus Ellis.

Graham’s evacuation order affected Bay, Escambia, Franklin, Gulf, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Wakulla counties.

A weather buoy in the gulf recorded gusts of 135 m.p.h. Wednesday as the storm, measuring 300 miles across, picked up strength from the warm waters of the gulf.

On Grand Isle, La., residents of the island just off the southern tip of Louisiana fled from a hurricane Wednesday for the fourth time since spring.

It is possible that the 2,200 residents of Grand Isle might be spared, but they were not taking any chances. They had experienced the fickleness of hurricanes before.

“People here are getting pretty tired of it,” said Phillip Bradberry, the mayor pro tem of Grand Isle.

Elena Hit Twice

“In the whole time since we were incorporated in 1965, we only had three or four other hurricane evacuations,” he said. “This year we had Elena come back on us twice. We had Danny, and now we got Kate.”

Bradberry said Grand Isle did not evacuate last month for Hurricane Juan, which came up too quickly and flooded the roads before officials could do anything. He said people were still complaining about that, while others were protesting the evacuation under way Wednesday was unnecessary.

“You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” he said.

Forecasters said Florida’s west coast would be hit with tides two to three feet above normal, which could cause minor flooding. Small craft were warned to stay in port from central Louisiana to Jupiter Inlet on Florida’s eastern coast.

New Orleans Coast Guard spokesman Jim Kosch said Wednesday that cutters in Mobile, Ala., and Panama City, Fla., were already cruising southwest in the gulf to try to skirt the storm. “Hopefully, after Juan, everyone seems to be taking precautions well in advance,” he said.

“I really thought we could file this season away and forget it. Now here we go again. There’s something wrong with somebody out there,” said Rose Young, emergency management director in Mobile County, Ala.

Offshore drilling companies ferried many of the 20,000 workers on gulf rigs to the mainland. They also were caught off guard by Juan, with hundreds still on the rigs when the hurricane hit Oct 27. That storm caused an estimated $1 billion in damage and left eight dead. R. R. Dorney, an Exxon spokesman in New Orleans, said the oil-rig evacuation for Kate was the third one this year.

Jets Flown Inland

The aircraft carrier Lexington left its berth at the Pensacola Naval Air Station to ride out the storm at sea, and military aircraft at Navy and Air Force bases were flown to inland bases.

“We have a very strong hurricane out there,” said forecaster Hal Gerrish. He said the storm appeared to be heading for Florida, but the hurricane center could not rule out Louisiana as the place where Kate might make landfall.

If that happened, it would be the first time in modern history that hurricanes have hit a state four times in a single season. Hurricanes Danny, Elena and Juan all slammed into the Louisiana coast this year. Only twice before has a state taken the brunt of three hurricanes in a season--North Carolina in 1955 and Florida in 1964.

In the Louisiana town of Houma, police Capt. John Dixon said no evacuation had been ordered yet. But he said the town’s residents respect a hurricane’s power after this year’s devastating blows to the coast.

“I don’t think there will be any trouble getting people to evacuate if the storm starts to head this way,” he said.

From Cuba, which was pounded by Kate most of Tuesday, there were reports of one to 10 deaths, crop damage, flooding and livestock losses.

The Associated Press reported that Orlando Contreras, public relations director for Cuban broadcasting operations in Havana, told Phoenix radio station KFYI by telephone that 10 people were killed, 50 were injured, and sugar cane and other crops were “greatly affected.” However, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported three dead and one missing.

In the Florida Keys, about 400 power lines were knocked down or damaged when the passing hurricane’s outer fringes lashed out with 71-m.p.h. winds. About 30,000 people in the 100-mile chain of islands were without electricity overnight, but most power was restored by afternoon, authorities said.

Barry Bearak reported from Pensacola, Fla., and J. Michael Kennedy from Houston, Tex.