Two and a half million people have been urged to leave their homes and Florida residents have jammed the roads as Hurricane Frances roars toward the crowded southeast US coast.
Frances lashed the southeastern Bahamas with 140 mph winds yesterday and was expected to slam into the capital, Nassau, today.
Its winds dropped to 130 mph by evening, forecasters said, but it was still a major hurricane and could strengthen again before hitting Florida tomorrow, just three weeks after Hurricane Charley hit the state's west coast.
A total of 2.5 million people were being told to evacuate barrier islands, low-lying coastal areas and mobile homes in the path of the storm.
Almost the entire east coast of Florida was under a hurricane warning, reviving memories of Hurricane Andrew, the most costly US storm in history, which ravaged the Miami area in 1992.
By yesterday evening, Frances was a strong Category 3 storm on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, compared to Charley, which was a Category 4 when it hit southwest Florida on August 13th. But Frances was twice as wide and capable of savaging a much broader area.
Frances carried a potential storm surge of up to 14 feet above normal tides, and was expected to pour 10 to 20 inches of rain on Florida.
Schools, courts and offices closed along the Florida east coast. Residents rushed to secure their homes, snatching plywood, flashlights and bottled water off store shelves. Gas pumps ran dry and automatic teller machines ran out of cash.
Police in the Miami area toured mobile home parks to urge residents to leave, mindful of how Charley shredded such homes when it whipped over the coastal towns of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte.
Florida's most populous areas were at risk, including Tampa and tourist centre Orlando, home of Disney World. On the coast east of Orlando, the three space shuttles and other equipment were secured at the Kennedy Space centre.
Governor Jeb Bush declared the state a disaster area on Wednesday to speed aid after the storm hits.
The storm moved yesterday over the Bahamas chain of 700 islands that are home to 300,000 people and was expected to hit Nassau today.
Prime Minister Perry Christie told Bahamians they faced one of the most intense hurricanes in their history. "We have made every human effort to prepare ... we are ultimately in the hands of God."