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Jeanne Hits Florida Coast
Written by
Lesly Hallman
, Staff Writer, Redcross.org
Sunday, September 26, 2004 — Hurricane Jeanne hit the east coast of Florida early Sunday morning (Sept. 26) near the same spot where Frances pounded the state's "Treasure Coast" less than a month ago, leaving another round of rain and wind to batter the state for the fourth time since August. Jeanne continued her destructive trek across the Sunshine State yesterday, cutting power to 4 million homes and businesses, ripping rooftops to shreds and ruining hundreds of orange groves.
Satellite photos show Hurricane Jeanne just as it reaches the Florida coast late last night. (Photo Credit: NOAA)
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The storm was a Category 3 with winds up to 120 mph when it came ashore at Hutchinson Island, near Port St. Lucie, before moving from the east-central coast to Tampa and into north Florida and toward Georgia.
Forecasters said Jeanne's sustained winds had weakened to about 45 mph by 8 a.m. EDT on Monday morning and is expected to become a tropical depression later today. However, the storm still threatens to spawn tornadoes and dump up to 8 inches of rain in north Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
In Stuart, Fl., close to where the eye came ashore, homes were destroyed, power lines fell and trees were uprooted by strong winds. A million Florida residents are reportedly without power, and that number is expected to rise as the storm moves across the state. Several thousand residents are still without power from Hurricane Ivan and previous storms
The American Red Cross sheltered more than 35,000 people in 136 Red Cross shelters last night. Nearly 2 million people were ordered to evacuate by state officials in advance of the storm. The Red Cross has staged volunteers and relief supplies across the region to begin providing assistance to affected residents as soon as conditions permit.
On its way to Florida Hurricane Jeanne killed at least 1,500 on the island nation of Haiti, making it one of the deadliest storms in history. The eye of the storm passed directly over Abaco Island in the Bahamas, destroying homes and leaving the airport on Grand Bahama Island completely underwater, just as Hurricane Frances did a few weeks ago.
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