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Hurricane Frances Updates
September 1-7, 2004 Last update: 9:00 p.m. - 9/7 |
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VERY VERY Special Thanks ********** Monday,
9/6/04, 7:15pm - OrlandoWeather.com
- Recovery, Assessment Of One-Two Punch Begins
Frances is moving toward the northwest at 8 mph. On this track, the center of Frances should continue moving over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and make landfall over the central portion of the Florida Panhandle by Monday evening. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph, with higher gusts. Some strengthening is possible during the next 12 hours, and Frances could become a hurricane again just before landfall occurs. The storm was blamed for at least two deaths in Florida, including a man who was killed when his car hit a tree near Gainesville. A woman was killed when a tree fell on her mobile home in Alachua County. Tropical Storm Frances is now aiming at the Florida Panhandle after leaving behind flooding and torn rooftops throughout a wide swath of central and southern Florida. Frances ripped off roofs, snapped trees and cut electricity to millions of people. Shelters are housing some 80,000 residents and tourists. Forecasters said the strongest winds were on the backside of the storm. They predicted Frances would weaken into a tropical storm late Sunday as it moved north of Tampa and into the Gulf of Mexico. Four people were hospitalized in Boynton Beach after breathing carbon monoxide fumes from a generator that was running in a house. Some evacuees had to flee a second time when a school roof was partially blown off in Martin County. More than 300 of the original 630 evacuees stayed when 16 rooms flooded. At the other end of the state, Gulf County officials in the Panhandle issued an evacuation order for mobile and low-lying homes. More than 5 million people lost power. Progress Energy reports 599,093 of its customers are without power. Orlando Utilities Commission reports 57,000 customers are in the dark. More than 1.7 million Florida Power and Light customers are without power. Kissimmee Utility Authority, which was hit particularly hard during Hurricane Charley three weeks ago, reports 4,745 customers without power. Click here for outages by county.More
than 13 inches of rain fell along Florida's central east coast, flooding
some areas 4 feet deep, before Frances entered the Gulf of Mexico
late Sunday. Monday, 9/6/04, 8:30am - OrlandoWeather.com Tropical Storm Frances Stalls In Gulf Evacuees Remain In Shelters Tropical Storm Frances is frustrating Central Floridians again as it stalls in the Gulf of Mexico Monday morning. At 8 a.m., Frances was centered at latitude 29.1 north, longitude 83.6 west or about 110 miles east-southeast of Apalachicola. Frances is drifting northward, and a general track toward the northwest about 12 mph is expected later today. On this track, the center of Frances should continue moving over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and make landfall over the central portion of the Florida Panhandle by Monday evening. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph, with higher gusts. Some strengthening is possible during the next 12 hours, and Frances could become a hurricane again just before landfall occurs. The storm was blamed for at least two deaths in Florida, including a man who was killed when his car hit a tree near Gainesville. A woman was killed when a tree fell on her mobile home in Alachua County. There were two earlier deaths in the Bahamas, where thousands were forced from their homes. Passengers arrived at Orlando International Airport before sunrise Monday, hoping they'll be lucky enough to catch a flight out of Central Florida. Ticket counters at the airport are scheduled to reopen at 10 a.m., with flights resuming at noon.It could take several days to get a huge backlog of passengers to their destinations. Ticketholders should call their airline before heading to OIA.A handful of airlines said they won't be flying in or out of OIA Monday, and they hope to resume service Tuesday. Those airlines include Southwest Airlines, Aeromexico, Air Jamaica, British Airways, CanJet, Cayman Airways, Condor-Thomas Cook, Copa, Martinair-Holland and Virgin Atlantic. **********
Monday, SEPTEMBER 6 - Walt Disney World Resort safely withstood Hurricane Frances and maintained power throughout the storm. After a visual inspection of the entire property, we discovered only minor roof damage to a single backstage structure and minimal horticultural damage.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 - As of noon Sunday, WDW expects to be operational on Monday. Final decisions to be made after the storm passes.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 - Hess Gas Stations on WDW property are now CLOSED SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 - The Walt Disney World Theme Parks, Water Parks, Recreation Areas, the Boardwalk and all areas of Downtown Disney will not operate on Saturday, September 4 based upon forecasts from the National Weather Service and information from emergency preparedness officials.
********** Orlando International Airport Updates Monday, 9/6; 8:00am: Orlando International Airport Passengers arrived at Orlando International Airport before sunrise Monday, hoping they'll be lucky enough to catch a flight out of Central Florida. Ticket counters at the airport are scheduled to reopen at 10 a.m., with flights resuming at noon.It could take several days to get a huge backlog of passengers to their destinations. Ticketholders should call their airline before heading to OIA. A handful of airlines said they won't be flying in or out of OIA Monday, and they hope to resume service Tuesday. Those airlines include Southwest Airlines, Aeromexico, Air Jamaica, British Airways, CanJet, Cayman Airways, Condor-Thomas Cook, Copa, Martinair-Holland and Virgin Atlantic. Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Orlando Executive Airport (ORL) will close at NOON Friday, September 3 due to the Hurricane. Domestic passengers holding reservations for flights prior to noon on Friday, September 3, 2004, need to arrive 3 hours prior to their departure. For further information on flight schedules up that time, please contact the airline directly. The Hyatt Hotel at Orlando International Airport is booked and sold out. Normal flight operations will resume when weather permits and clean up operations are completed. Orlando International Airport is not an emergency shelter. For
information on all arrivals/departures for Orlando International
Airport (MCO), visit: ********** Orlando Area Updates - 8:30am, 9/6
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Special POP Century Report with Photos from Barbara Laura from Orlando - 10:30 pm Sunday 9/5 - This storm that will *not* end. We're getting rain and gusts now that rival the biggest stuff we've seen all day. We're getting the back side of the storm which is now moving off Tampa. The reason we're getting another dose of this is because she's feeding off warm water again...only this time the water is in the Gulf of Mexico! Cindy Kerns from Saratoga Springs - 9:30 pm Sunday 9/5 Well we thought we were being smart on Friday. We changed our flight out from Sunday to Monday, thinking that by then the airports will be open and we would have confirmed seats on a flight to go home. We were wrong. Southwest is not flying out of MCO until Tuesday, and the first flight I could change to that wasn't full is Wednesday. So two more days at Disney for us. Glad we had DVC points we could borrow and an extra day on our park hoppers. My son is actually going to miss his first day of school. He's happy. Other than that we just came back from Artist Palette (the Fast food court) at Saratoga Springs Resort. They had Mickey, Stitch, Pooh and Eyeore running around interacting with the kids and guests. The CM's started a game of Goofy Bingo and Disney Trivia to entertain everyone. We spent 2 1/2 hours over there having a good time. There are little trees down here and there all over the resort and the roof in the lobby of SSR is leaking. Other than that I didn't see any damage. Craig, Orlando, 4:20pm Sunday 9/5: The weather has calmed down for the moment. Looking at Doppler radar it appears we are in a large lull. But maybe, the storms to our east will follow the hurricane’s rotation and go around us to the north. But so far, so good. Cindy Kerns from Saratoga Springs - 3:00 pm Sunday 9/5: Just thought I would send you an update. From my window its just been a lot of wind and rain and some ducks. I haven't seen any damage here, but I haven't been out of the room all day either. At 1:00pm Disney gave us some more movies to watch. We now have Mulan, Rookie, Atlantis, Peter Pan, Its a Bugs Life, Tower of Terror, Lilo & Stitch, Lion King 2, Three Musketeers, Roger Rabbit and some others that I didn't write down. These are playing on the same three channels, one right after the other. We are hoping the storm goes away this evening so we can go to the food court for dinner, just to get out of the room for a while.
Chris
, WDW Contemporary, 2:30pm Sunday 9/5: We've
been watching/hearing Frances from a tower room in the Contemporary.
The winds are really howling up here. They started last night around
10 pretty heavy and haven't stopped since. It was odd to look out
and not see the castle lights. They are sustained at 30-40 mph with
gusts upwards of 56 mph. It's interesting to look out over the Seven
Seas Lagoon and see waves. If we wander down to the 4th floor and
look at the storm from there it *looks* worse on the Bay Lake side,
but that's probably because there are more trees to see bending over
there. We haven't recieved an update from the staff since about 10
this am. That update requested us to stay in our room unless absolutly
necesary. All of the restaurants and the 4th floor concourse are closed.
The Food N Fun center is open only to purchase box lunch/dinners and
refill drinks. An earlier update gave the locations of rooms in the
wings that guests staying in each wing could purchase the meals w/o
having to leave the wings. The eye of the storm is about 30-40 miles
south of Orlando at the moment so we're right in the worst of it and
it should slow some soon. Yesterday the resort had a lot of activities
for the children, coloring, pin trading, characters, a magician and
movies on every tv around. Today, for the safety of guests and cast
members there is nothing going on so cabin fever sets in quicker. Craig, Orlando, 10am Sunday 9/5: The winds are strong enough that it’s scary. But not raining too much yet. I hate to think both are getting worse. We took one power hit shortly after 9 AM, but it came right back on. Craig, Orlando, 8am Sunday 9/5: The weather continues to be wind and rain, with short moments of quiet. We’ve had 3 inches of rain in the last 12 hours. We don’t expect to see the worst of it for another four to six hours. The projected path show Orlando and Walt Disney World are in areas that expect sustained winds of tropical storm strength (under 74 MPH) rather than hurricane strength. Tom Balint, Jr. Home in New Jersey - 8am Sunday 9/5:
Cindy Kerns from Saratoga Springs - 4:00 pm Saturday 9/4: We just received another letter from Disney (3:30p). The big change is that the theme parks will NOT be open tomorrow (Sunday) because of the storm. Also No WDW transportation will be available tomorrow. Other than that it is a repetition of the earlier warnings about staying in your room until told it is safe to go out. Storm bands have been coming through all afternoon with winds and rains. No damage yet that I can see but this is just the outer bands of the storm. Cindy Kerns from Saratoga Springs - 11:30am Saturday 9/4:
Saturday 9/4 10:30 am VERO BEACH I just had the lights flicker off so I just lost all I wrote back to you. The winds are picking up here and the rain is becomeing heavy. We are worried about flooding. We are on the main land in a 3 story house. We have carried our suitcases downstairs and all the important paperwork and photos are downstairs. Our house looks like we are remodeling with all off the walls. I hope to be able to write again, if we lose power it may take me a while but I will do it no matter what. West Palm Beach has lost power in some areas. My sister in law in Sebastain has as well. The storm surge is getting bigger and bigger. I know it won't get better till it gets worse. Thank you for keeping us in our thoughts. We have a friend from who lives in a mobile home park who is with us. She's 87 and my step father has early onset Alzyhimers so he is a challenge in this. My Mother and I are doing the best we can in this time. I am glad I am in town to be able to help her. Vero Beach is my home town and I was home for labor day. Talk to you soon(I hope_) with more concise hurricane news. KW Saturday 9/4 2:30am VERO BEACH - Here in Vero Beach, it is the calm before the storm. We have had hard rain but for very short time spans_maybe 5 minutes. But, the wind/rain was blowing right and left at the same time. The wind is starting to pick up now. We are expecting landfall, from all news reports, pretty close to Vero Beach. All the stores closed yesterday and a few stayed open and are, of course, now all closed. We anticipate category 2 hurricane now and are thankful it (we hope) won't become a cat 4 again. The debris has begun to fall from the trees as earlier today the winds were a minimal 55 mph. I am sure when the winds beoome 105 as predicted that will become more intense. Everyone who is going to get off is off the barrier island and the bridges are closed from the main land of Vero Beach to the barrier island. That means, of course, Disney Vero Beach is closed and well. A few people have chosen to stay in mobile homes and I fear they may drown especially the ones close to the water and river. Many shelters are full. We are staying in our home and are prepared as we can be. It is in out of our control now. The waiting is the worst now. KW ********** WDW
Swan Resort WebCam Live Broadcasts via the Internet: National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ Florida County by County Updates on Closures, Shelters, etc: http://www.local6.com/news/3661223/detail.html Local news stations with hurricane updates: ******** The
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