Hurricane Jeanne slams Bahamas on way to Florida

Deadly Hurricane Jeanne strengthened rapidly as it crossed the northern Bahamas yesterday on its way to deliver a record fourth hurricane strike in one season to densely populated Florida.

Up to three million storm-weary Floridians were told to evacuate coastal islands, mobile homes and flood-prone areas. Others battened down the hatches one more time, stocking up on batteries, water and gasoline and shuttering homes, or streamed into public shelters.

Many on the storm-scarred Atlantic coast, emboldened by having survived Hurricane Frances three weeks ago, vowed to remain at home, an act of defiance that alarmed authorities.

As Jeanne's 185 kph winds, up from 169 kph overnight, and 2.4-metre storm surge lashed Great Abaco island in the Bahamas, a 700-island chain of 300,000 people stretching from Haiti to off the Florida coast, US officials urged residents not to be complacent.

Governor Jeb Bush said people living in Florida's coastal areas could not assume they could ride out Jeanne just because they had survived the previous hurricanes.

"People on the barrier islands who think they can ride this storm out should think again," Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, told reporters. "It is getting bigger and stronger."

By 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), the storm, which has already killed up to 2,000 people in Haiti and 31 in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, was just west of Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, at latitude 26.6 north and longitude 77.6 west, or 250 km east of Florida.

Jeanne picked up speed overnight and was travelling westward at 22 kph.

The US National Hurricane Centre warned the storm, now a strong Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, could strengthen further over warm water between the Bahamas and the southeastern United States.

Along Florida's Atlantic coast, including the densely populated counties of Broward and Miami-Dade, three million residents were told to evacuate.

State officials said computer models showed 4.7 million of the state's 17 million people were in harm's way, and estimated that 1.2 million buildings could be damaged, leaving around 142,000 families without homes.

In some parts of the likely strike zone near Ft. Pierce in St Lucie county, home owners have barely had time to patch over damaged roofs with blue tarpaulin, or to clear piles of tree limbs and debris left behind by Hurricane Frances, or the soggy remnants of Hurricane Ivan last week.

"It's horrible. This is just unprecedented," said St Lucie county emergency management spokeswoman Linette Trabulsy.

When Jeanne comes ashore on Florida as expected early today, it will make history - the first time since records began in 1851 that Florida has been walloped by four hurricanes in a single Atlantic storm season. The season lasts from June to the end of November.

Hurricane Charley kicked off a season likely to dent the state's reputation as a tourist destination when it slammed ashore on the southwest Gulf Coast on August 13 as a Category 4 storm - the second most powerful. It had winds of 233 kph, killed 33 people and caused $7.4 billion in insured damages.

Frances, a weaker but much larger storm with 105 mph (169 kph) winds, spread destruction along the Atlantic coast on Sept. 5, killing 30 and causing $4.4 billion in damages.

Ivan, at one point the sixth most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, ripped into the Gulf Coast between Florida and Alabama with 130 mph (209 kph) winds on Sept. 16, killing at least 45 people across the United States and causing up to $6 billion in damages.

"It's all part of living in Florida. You live in California, you deal with earthquakes. You live in Texas, you deal with drought and fire. You live in Kansas, you deal with tornadoes. I'd rather live somewhere it's warm," said Broward county emergency management spokeswoman Alinda Montfort.

In the Bahamas, residents of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco islands, both still recovering from the ravages of Frances, packed into shelters.

Silbert Mills, chairman of Abaco's disaster preparedness committee, said there was a feeling of "ubiquitous melancholy" on the island in the face of the approaching storm.