FLORIDA Millions flee ahead of Frances

Forecasters say it could be the worst storm since Andrew in 1992.
MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) -- Bracing for a monstrous storm, residents and tourists clogged shelters or made last-minute preparations today as Hurricane Frances churned toward the Atlantic coast, where the state's second pummeling in three weeks could begin as soon as Saturday.
About 2.5 million residents were ordered to evacuate -- the largest number in state history.
The slow-moving storm's core was now expected to hit Florida Saturday afternoon or evening, instead of early Saturday as had been earlier predicted.
Early today, streets in Port St. Lucie were quiet, with almost all businesses boarded up. A trickle of people went into a Publix supermarket. There was a light breeze as the sun rose.
Frances had weakened today into a strong Category 3 storm packing 120 mph winds and the potential to push ashore waves up to 14 feet high.
Its top sustained winds were down from about 145 mph on Thursday, but forecasters said the weakening could be fluctuation typical with large storms and Frances could regain its former strength. If it did, it could be the worst storm to hit the state since Andrew in 1992.
"I'm petrified," said Deena Dacey, who fled her Rockledge home near Cape Canaveral for a hotel room near Tampa's Busch Gardens on the other, leeward side of the state. "If we can get settled, we might be OK, but I doubt it."
Location
At 8 a.m., the hurricane, with wind still at 120 mph, was centered in the Bahamas, some 260 miles east-southeast of the lower Florida east coast and was moving west-northwest near 9 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 85 miles from its center.
"I hope people don't take comfort in the fact that" Frances has weakened, Gov. Jeb Bush said today. "The storm is very unpredictable. ... We still don't know exactly where landfall will be."
In the Bahamas, fearful residents of the nation's biggest cities boarded their homes and hunkered down inside or fled to shelters to ride out the storm. It had battered the nation's sparsely populated southeastern islands on Thursday.
Early today, it was toppling trees and littering roads with debris in Nassau, the capital.
Frances' landfall in Florida would represent the first time since 1950 that two major storms -- defined as ones with wind of at least 111 mph -- have hit Florida so close together.
It comes on the heels of Hurricane Charley, which hit on Aug. 13 with 145 mph wind and inflicted billions of dollars in damage to homes, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and causing 27 deaths as it crossed from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic.
Huge storm
With its imposing size -- a cloud cover about as big as the state of Texas -- and slow movement, Frances had the potential to ravage the state even if its winds don't regain the 145 mph speed.
Forecasters said the slower the storm moves across the ocean, the longer its winds and rain could linger, increasing the possibility of serious damage.
"The good news is for the procrastinators out there, that buys you a little more time, so take advantage of it," said Jaime Rhome, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
But, he warned, a slow-moving storm like this could bring 10 to 20 inches of rain.
The hurricane warning covered most of the state's eastern coast, from Florida City, near the state's southern tip, to Flagler Beach, north of Daytona Beach.
Forecasters could not say with certainty where Frances would come ashore, just that the core would strike late Saturday.
About 14.6 million of Florida's 17 million people live in the areas under hurricane watches and warnings.
Bush estimated 2.5 million residents were under evacuation orders in 15 Florida counties based on the state's projections of people living in evacuated areas.
Individual counties reported at least 1.32 million residents ordered evacuated.
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