FORT MYERS, Fla. — As rare back-to-back tropical storms -- one a hurricane, the other likely to become one -- churned Wednesday toward Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush declared a statewide emergency and mobilized the National Guard. Tourists were told to evacuate the low-lying Florida Keys.
"Today is going to be an interesting day, to say the least," said Ben Nelson, meteorologist for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. In 150 years of reliable storm data, he said, there was no known precedent for two hurricanes striking Florida in such rapid succession.
The smaller storm, Bonnie, is forecast to make landfall in the already rain-soaked Panhandle of northern Florida this morning.
Charley became a hurricane Wednesday and was still growing in strength. It is expected to hit or pass near the Lower Keys late today. Charley is forecast to pack winds of 85 to 105 mph and crash ashore early Friday on the Gulf Coast somewhere between Sarasota and Fort Myers.
"Right now, we're the bull's-eye on the target," said Gordon "Booch" DeMarchi, a spokesman for Lee County government in Fort Myers, home to about 500,000 people. Throughout the day, Lee County officials met in a windowless bunker well inland to discuss how to deal with what would be the area's first hurricane in 44 years.
"Most of our citizens probably underestimate a hurricane," said DeMarchi. "They have never lived through one."
In the Keys, a 100-mile-long archipelago popular with anglers, divers and tourists, emergency officials told visitors from the Dry Tortugas to Ocean Reef to get out, and cars streamed northward throughout the day on the solitary road leading to the mainland.
"Most of the tourists have left town, so this evening there won't be any business, and tomorrow there won't be any," said Eric Adams, manager of a Key West company that organized a pub crawl of some of the island's most celebrated saloons.
For some locals on the laid-back island, there was no good reason -- yet -- to panic.
"We're not taking it too serious right now; we're sort of seeing what's going to happen in the next 24 hours," said Kurt Pasqualle, manager of the Lazy Gecko, a Key West eatery specializing in frozen daiquiris and deli sandwiches.
"We've had a couple of storms come up this way before, and they usually hit Cuba and dismantle."
