Hurricane Opal Hits Florida; 100,000 Flee

Hurricane Opal lashed the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday like a steel whip, killing one person and sending 100,000 others into headlong flight from the worst blow since a storm that took more than 250 lives along the Gulf Coast in 1969.

Opal struck just east of Pensacola at 6 p.m. local time. Wind howled at 125 m.p.h. and roared in gusts to 144 m.p.h. Rain raked across beaches, and surf pounded like a headache. Storm surges sent tides to 20 feet above normal, and hurricane-spawned tornadoes hurtled across the countryside. One ripped through a trailer park in Okaloosa County, killing a 76-year-old woman.

Bumper-to-bumper cars and pickup trucks lined highways to the horizon as people sought shelter inland. Florida officials ordered residents to evacuate a 150-mile stretch from Pensacola to Wakulla Beach, south of Tallahassee. Lines formed at gasoline stations, but some people boarded up their homes with plywood, shut down their appliances and rode out the worst of the storm.

The hurricane moved inland at 22 m.p.h., decreasing in force. “It will remain powerful until tomorrow afternoon,” said Bill Frederick, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Forecasters said Opal would pound Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and finally the hollows of Kentucky with heavy rain, tornadoes and tropical-storm-force winds of 75 m.p.h. before blowing itself out.

NASA postponed today’s scheduled launch of the space shuttle Columbia because of the storm, and President Clinton declared a major disaster in both Florida and Alabama to supplement state and local recovery efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent in relief teams and made plans to fly in water and other supplies.

The hurricane knocked out electricity to more than 357,000 homes and businesses, or half of Gulf Power’s customers in the Panhandle. As midnight approached, much of the city of Pensacola was dark. Steve Higginbottom, a spokesman for the utility, said some of the customers were in remote areas. He said it might take up to a month to restore power to all of them.

Troops Mobilized

At the peak of the storm, signs blew down in Pensacola, and bus benches flew through the streets. Shingles sailed off roofs. More than 55,000 people were evacuated from the Pensacola area alone, and Gov. Lawton Chiles and other officials mobilized 3,500 National Guard troops and 700 extra police officers to guard homes and provide other assistance.

At the Pensacola Holiday Inn, guests registered by flashlight. One was Will Long, 40, a Honda sales manager from Atlanta, who had come with seven trailer-trucks loaded with $3 million worth of generators for emergency crews. He also brought a 12-pack of beer stowed in an ice chest. He offered the beer to fellow guests.

“It’s a hurricane!” he said by way of explanation. “The rules are there are no rules.”

His trip from Atlanta, normally a five-hour drive, had taken 14 hours because of the wind and heavy rain. At one point, he said, the hurricane grew so intense that he decided to head back to Georgia. But northbound traffic had ground into a dead stop.

“It looked like the Santa Monica Freeway on a Friday,” said Long, a Pasadena, Calif., native. “A hundred miles of it.”

Hurricanes, he said, are more unnerving than earthquakes.

“When an earthquake hits, by the time you realize it, it’s over,” he said. “But hurricanes really eat at you. It’s the anticipation. You know they’re coming. It’s the Big Evil out there.”

One of Long’s drinking partners was Larry Baldwin Jr., a 23-year-old auto repairman from Destin, a hard-hit beach community to the east. He had fled Destin that morning with his 89-year-old grandmother, only to find himself stuck in traffic.

Trapped in Homes

The worst moment came in the early afternoon, just outside Pensacola, when an accident blocked a freeway, stranding the two of them for more than three hours on a causeway bridge.

“The guy on the radio was saying, ‘There’s a tornado watch! Take cover wherever you are!’ ” Baldwin said, “I’m sitting in a 1979 Fleetwood Cadillac on a bridge. I mean, we couldn’t turn around. We were just wedged in. I was getting ready to hop out of the car and strap myself to a post.”

Baldwin and his grandmother finally made it to a church in Pensacola, where they rode out the storm. Then they found one of the last rooms still available at the Holiday Inn.

“We survived,” Baldwin said. But he was not so sure about his house back in Destin, or his dog, or his three cats.

Many residents of Pensacola who waited too long to evacuate were trapped in their homes. Those who did flee caused one massive traffic jam on U.S. 29, heading north into Alabama, and another on eastbound Interstate 10, where traffic slowed to 5 m.p.h.

More than 15,000 people sought refuge in 42 emergency shelters in Santa Rosa County, northeast of Pensacola. Several shelters in Escambia County, to the northwest, reported food shortages. One shelter designed to hold 500 people was filled with more than 900.

Debbie Wilson, a health department nurse in Jackson County, nearly 200 miles to the east, helped run a shelter at a high school that had 250 people camped in the hallways and gymnasium--50 more than capacity.

“It’s chaotic because there’s so many people,” Wilson said. “They are scared and tired. They are exhausted and want to cry. We can’t just run them off.”

The shelter offered sandwiches and drinks, but it had only a few cots and blankets. Wilson said the county had set up six shelters in schools.

“All are maxed out,” she said.

In Panama City, southeast of Pensacola, David Miller, the Bay County public safety director, reported damage to the marina.

He said the hurricane knocked out telephone service and electrical power. “We have no injuries or fatalities that we know of,” Miller said. “Until the winds die down and we can physically look at things, we won’t know” for sure.

Panama City imposed a 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew.

Immediately west, in Panama City Beach, the end of a new, 1,500-foot concrete pier crumbled into the Gulf of Mexico. Waves crested over the tops of bathhouses on the pier, normally 15 to 20 feet above the water. Several homes on stilts were damaged, and 600 of the National Guard troops were dispatched to the area.

“I’ve been through a couple of hurricanes, but this one is really bad,” Horace Crowson of Panama City Beach told the Associated Press. “The shingles are coming off my house now, and I can see that the trees are bent over and are nearly touching the ground.

“It’s pretty rough.”

Other residents reported power outages and a structural fire near the water. In Mexico Beach, 25 miles east of Panama City, residents reported that 12 houses had washed into the gulf. In Destin, between Panama City and Pensacola, cars were reported floating down streets.

Residents said the wind piled boats like cordwood.

One four-lane road was ruptured by a hole so large, a deputy sheriff said, “that a car would fit.”

He said to be careful of “snakes and rats and other critters” battered by the storm. “You’re going to find them in places they’ve never been seen before,” he said, “and they’re going to be just as angry about being displaced as you are.”

Among those who fled were Neal Anderson of Panama City and his friend, Carolyn Baity. “We stayed for [Hurricane] Erin, but this is different,” Anderson said. “This was Category 4 [offshore], and when they said, ‘Leave,’ the tone was different.”

The Andersons left Panama City before the storm hit. They took refuge in Tallahassee.

Among those who stayed, despite the hardship and the danger, were Sarah and Ruben Ard, who have lived for years in a one-story, three-bedroom house 12 miles north of Pensacola.

“I’m a bit older,” Sarah Ard said by telephone. “I’ve been through quite a few hurricanes. My house has [with]stood quite a few. . . . We boarded up the windows, caught water and cooked something to have when the electricity goes.

“We have plenty of fresh water in the refrigerator.

“It does no good to be afraid. If you try to leave, you’re stranded on the highway, going 5 m.p.h., and when you try to turn around, they don’t let you. What’s the use trying to run?

“Right now, one tree is down, a mulberry tree. It’s very windy, but not that noisy because we’re all boarded up. We have two big sycamores and some pecan trees. I pray they don’t fall. It’s a lot of work to clear them all up.”

How could she be so calm?

“Well, I’m a Christian lady, and if the Good Lord is ready for me, I’m ready to go.”

Their son, Glenn, boarded up his own house, a restaurant he owns and his parents’ home. Then he and his wife, Carol, took refuge in the restaurant, 17 miles west of Pensacola, near the water. They were joined by three other couples and two children.

“It’s a very safe, all-block building, with only four windows in the front,” Carol Ard said. “We didn’t board them up. If the windows blow, we have a secure area in the back to move to.

“So far so good. . . . We still have power. The children just got up from a nap. We cooked a steak, and we’re playing cards. We’re safe and sound.”

100-Mile Traffic Jam

Those who fled did not have it much easier.

Phil Lowery, a Jackson County sheriff’s deputy, pulled off the road at an Interstate 10 truck stop and was besieged by motorists wanting to know where they could go.

Eastbound traffic was backed up for 100 miles.

“People waited too late to leave,” Lowery said. “I just hope we can ride it out and people don’t get hurt.”

Joel Hughes, 36, who runs a woodworking shop in Crestview, Fla., was eastbound on Interstate 10 trying to reach Tallahassee with his family.

They had been on the road since early morning and had gotten only 100 miles.

“You’ve got to be patient with everybody else,” Hughes said, “but now it looks like we’ll probably get caught on the road in a vehicle when the storm comes, and that’s not good.”

Many of those who fled drove north into Georgia.

Melanie and Barry Perritt drove on every back road they could think of to leave Pensacola shortly after sunup. They knew the wrath of hurricanes. Erin had knocked a tree down on top of their home only eight weeks before.

“We just finished the repairs yesterday, and our new furniture was delivered last night,” Melanie Perritt said at a lodge in Blakely, Ga., where she and her husband were spending Wednesday night. “We sat on [the furniture] for the first time last night, and then covered it with plastic this morning and left.

“I hope my beautiful couch and wingback chair will be there when we get back.”

Bob and Jackie Fleming, who live along a canal not far from Panama City bay, had been planning a vacation in Australia and New Zealand. They were to depart today.

Then Opal hit.

“We rolled up the Oriental rugs,” Jackie Fleming said, “and carried them to the second floor.”

Her husband tied down their canoe and filled it with water. Then they left.

At their overnight accommodations in Blakely, both expressed fear that their house back in Panama City had washed away.

“Our house is eight feet above the canal,” Bob Fleming said, “and they are saying the water will be at 16 to 20 feet. If we find the house is still standing after the storm, then we’ll go on to Australia.

“This vacation doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun as it did a week ago.”

Opal was the most powerful hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast since Camille, whose sustained winds of 200 m.p.h. killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi 26 years ago.

Hurricane Andrew blasted South Florida in 1992 with sustained winds of almost 150 m.p.h. and gusts to 200 m.p.h. Andrew killed 55 people.

Two days ago, Opal was a small storm drifting across the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, where it killed 10 people.

Then, over the 86-degree waters of the gulf, it intensified rapidly.

At one point Wednesday, the Hurricane Center said Opal’s wind hit 150 m.p.h., just 5 m.p.h. short of reaching Category 5, the most powerful classification for hurricanes.

Then Opal began sputtering.

Its sustained winds dropped to below 130 m.p.h., placing it in Category 3 shortly before it made landfall.

Times staff writer Katz reported from Pensacola and Clary, a special correspondent, reported from Marianna, Fla. Times staff writers Anna M. Virtue in Miami, Edith Stanley in Blakely, Ga., and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Anatomy of a Hurricane

Hurricanes are born in the steamy tropics in late summer when rapidly evaporating ocean water combines with strong wind. Several hundred miles wide and packing winds of over 100 m.p.h., hurricanes suck heat from the Earth’s surface, drawing it into the upper atmosphere above 40,000 feet.

Exhaust: Hot air drawn into the atmosphere

Eye-wall: Fiercest part of storm

Winds spiral counter-clockwise

Spiraling storm cloud

Eye: Cool air descends into the 20-mile-wide eye, creating a small center of calm weather.

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HIGH WINDS

In the lower few thousand feet of the hurricane, air flows toward the center and whirls upward. The winds gain speed as they approach the central eye, as currents do in a whirlpool. The narrower the eye, the stronger the winds.

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STORM SURGES

Within the storm’s eye, a violent drop in pressure has a ‘plunger’ effect on the sea. Walls of water are generated and radiate outward, flooding low coastal areas.

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HURRICANE INTENSITY

Any storm of Category 3 or more is considered major:

CATEGORY 1

Damage: Minimal

Winds: 74-95 m.p.h.

CATEGORY 2

Damage: Moderate

Winds: 76-110 m.p.h.

CATEGORY 3

Damage: Extensive

Winds: 111-130 m.p.h.

CATEGORY 4

Damage: Extreme

Winds: 131-155 m.p.h.

CATEGORY 5

Damage: Catastrophic

Winds: Over 155 m.p.h.