Floridians Warned as Ernesto Nears

As Tropical Storm Ernesto made its way over the mountains and forests of eastern Cuba and headed for the 88-degree waters of the Florida Straits, the National Hurricane Center revised its forecast of a day earlier that the storm would regain hurricane strength by the time it makes U.S. landfall today.

Still, center Director Max Mayfield and Gov. Jeb Bush urged Floridians to brace for a powerful storm and be prepared to live without power, water or public services for at least three days in case Ernesto knocked out those essentials.

“Right now we’re forecasting that it’s going to be a very strong tropical storm, but there’s still some chance that it will become a hurricane,” Mayfield said, suggesting that winds of about 70 mph could hit the state and 5 to 10 inches of rain could trigger flooding.

Spurred by memories of the hardships after hurricanes Katrina and Wilma last year, drivers flocked to gas stations to top their tanks, to home-improvement stores to buy plywood and generators, and to supermarkets to stock up on canned goods, bottled water and batteries.

“Make sure you have the supplies for the 72 hours after the storm,” the governor told Floridians in an address from the state’s emergency management center in Tallahassee.

Reminding constituents, many still rattled from last year’s storms, of the potential for long blackouts and flooding, Bush added: “All you have to do is rewind to last year.”

Still, the president’s brother assured Floridians that plenty of gasoline was available -- 295 million gallons -- and that there was no need to “overreact” and engage in panic buying.

Florida Power & Light said it had positioned repair teams throughout the state to respond rapidly to any outages.

More than 400 miles of Florida coastline was under tropical storm warning and hurricane watch, from Vero Beach on the Atlantic southward, across the Keys and up to to Bonita Beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

The warnings included the area around Lake Okeechobee, which is surrounded by a dike that engineers warn could collapse in a powerful hurricane.

The governor said he had been assured that the lake level was low enough to pose little risk of such a breach.

Miami-Dade and Broward counties, home to 4 million residents and directly in the storm’s path according to the latest weather advisory, announced that schools and courts would be closed today.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez declared a state of emergency and announced that shelters would open at 7 a.m. today. He also announced mandatory evacuation of mobile homes residents, those in low-lying areas, and those with homes still covered with tarpaulins from roof damage inflicted by last year’s storms.

All other areas of the county were subject to voluntary evacuation, which the mayor said would be reviewed today, once the storm’s overnight track and intensity could be analyzed.

Early voting in a Sept. 5 primary was suspended at 7 p.m. and unlikely to resume before Thursday, Alvarez said.

In Cuba, at least 127,000 were evacuated from southern provinces before the storm made landfall early Monday, according to the Prensa Latina news agency.

Rolando Yero, a Santiago-area official, told Cuban state-run television that authorities estimated 1.7 million could be subject to evacuation by the time the storm cleared the island.

There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries on the island.