|
Tropical Depression 6 became Tropical Storm Frances
on August 25, while still far out in the tropical
Atlantic. It was a large and well-developed storm,
and by the next day Hurricane Frances was steadily
strengthening and steadily moving nearer to North
America. By August 31, Frances had reached the longitude
of Puerto Rico with winds in excess of 140 mph.
Puerto Rico was spared—Frances passed well to
the north. But the southern Bahamas and the Turks
and Caicos islands were flayed by winds of 145 mph
on Sept. 2. But as the storm passed over San Salvador
later that day, its winds dropped; it became a Category
3 hurricane, and after moving slowly through the northern
Bahamas it had decreased to a Category 2.
Thus, when Frances struck Florida's Treasure Coast
on September 5, coming ashore near Stuart, it was
considerably less intense than Charley had been three
weeks earlier. But it was also twice as large as Charley:
satellite images of Frances showed a hurricane so
huge it completely obscured the Florida peninsula.
Millions of Floridians lost power as Frances slowly
progressed across the state, its torrential rainfall
causing catastrophic flooding as it moved northwestward,
entering the Gulf and making a second landfall in
the Panhandle near St. Marks.
By the time Frances had reached the center of Florida
it had been downgraded to a tropical storm, but this
scarcely mattered to the millions of people made miserable
by the storm's progress—or to the seven people
killed, including the former son-in-law and grandson
of Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden.
After leaving Florida, Frances moved northward into
Georgia, and did not finally dissipate until reaching
Canada.
The damage caused by Frances was variously estimated
to be between $4 billion and $10 billion. And once
it had passed, weary Floridians turned their attention
to what promised to be the fiercest storm of the year:
Hurricane Ivan, then already well along the track
followed a month earlier by Hurricane Charley.
|
