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US

Wind, rain pick up as Hurricane Earl nears Florida

Landfall in 'wee hours' of Thursday morning

September 2, 1998
Web posted at: 10:58 p.m. EDT (0258 GMT)

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Hurricane Earl lost some punch, dropping its top winds to 80 mph as it lumbered Wednesday toard Florida's Panhandle, flooding streets, spawning tornadoes and whipping up the surf.

The unpredictable storm will probably make landfall near Panama City in the "wee hours of the morning," said Jerry Jerrill of the National Hurricane Center.

 Hurricane Earl:
Time: At 11 p.m. CDT Wednesday
(0300 GMT)
Location: 60 miles SW of Panama City, Florida
Lat./Lon: 29.5 N latitude,
86.3 W longitude
Winds: Near 80 mph
Moving: Near 10 mph ENE
INTERACTIVE MAP NAVIGATOR
Satellite, radar, warnings, and location maps

At 11 p.m. CDT (10 p.m. EDT), the storm was 60 miles southwest of Panama City, moving east-northeast near 10 mph.

Hurricane-force winds extended out 115 miles to the east and southeast of the center, whipe tropical storm-force winds of 39 mph extended out 200 miles. Street flooding was reported on nearby Santa Rosa Island, and winds were already gusting up to 50 miles per hour in Panama City Beach.

"The heavy winds are on the east side of the storm, so that's the place where we expect the major rainfall. That's the place where we expect the major damage and the major storm surge," Jerrill said. "If you live on that side, and that's basically east of Destin ... then you need to be particularly careful."

Various storm warnings have been posted along a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast through parts of four states:

  • A hurricane warning was in place from Pascagoula, Mississippi, across the Alabama coast and east into Florida as far as the Suwannee River in the Big Bend area.

  • Tropical storm warnings were in place from the Big Bend area south to Tampa and from Pascagoula west to Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Storm preparations under way

Earl had grown into a Category 2 hurricane on Wednesday afternoon with maximum winds of 100 mph, just one notch above the weakest storm designation. However, it is expected to push tides 8 to 11 feet above normal, on top of 5 to 10 inches of rain.

Schools began closing Wednesday morning across the Florida Panhandle, and Gov. Lawton Chiles declared a state of emergency. The American Red Cross opened shelters, and the military flew more than 100 fighter jets based in the Panhandle to other bases.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered for barrier islands in Wakulla and Taylor counties south of Tallahassee. A mandatory evacuation order was canceled for Franklin County because people might be trapped on clogged roads when the storm hit.

"We are just going to hunker down and wait until morning," said Butch Baker, Franklin County's emergency management director. "Folks are taking it seriously."

In Apalachicola, Franklin's county seat, only a grocery store was active; most of the town's businesses had shut down as people took shelter.

Officials recommended evacuations from flood-prone areas of Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Bay, Gulf, Taylor and Jefferson counties.

The area where Earl is aiming was slammed by two hurricanes in 1995, the first to directly hit the region in nearly 70 years. Hurricanes Erin and Opal killed at least 38 people and caused massive property damage.

With those memories fresh, shoppers in Pensacola didn't wait for warnings. Stephen Jenkins, a stocker at Sam's warehouse, said, "It was jammed all the way up from opening to closing" Tuesday.

Earl has been a tough challenge for forecasters, who just 24 hours ago expected the storm to make landfall further to the west in Louisiana, where evacuation plans were put into place.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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