Residents
Await Decision
Day #5--Mid Morning:
Neighbors Evacuate
OLIVIA GROWS, HEADING OUR WAY
RESIDENTS AWAIT MAYOR'S EVACUATION DECISION
9:00 AM, Wed.
Morning, October 4, 1995
PENSACOLA BEACH
TRIBUNE
PENSACOLA BEACH- Hurricane Olivia has now grown to a
category-four hurricane and is headed toward the Pensacola area. Remaining Pensacola Beach
residents and tourists are waiting for the new mayor to choose between a forced
evacuation and letting people decide for themselves.
Many Pensacola Beach
residents are already evacuating on their own, fearing they will be stuck on
the highway if they don't leave now.
Other nearby cities have
already decided about evacuations:
- On
Tuesday, officials ordered Perdido Key and
low-lying areas of Pensacola
City evacuated by
noon today. Public schools also were ordered closed.
- Okaloosa County
today ordered an evacuation of all areas south of U.S. Highway 98, which
includes parts of Fort Walton
Beach and Destin.
- Neighboring
Santa Rosa County
asked for a voluntary evacuation of Navarre Beach.
The
residents and tourists who remain want to ride out the storm. The residents
hope they can care for their homes during the hurricane. The tourists want the
experience of riding out the storm.
Pensacola Beach officials are submitting urgent recommendations to
the mayor to help him decide whether or not to make the evacuation mandatory.
At 9 a.m. EDT, the center of Olivia was near
27.6 north latitude and 88.4 west longitude, or about 225 miles south-southwest
of Pensacola Beach.
The storm is now a category-four on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. If the storm
stays at this strength, its winds could tear roofs off and the storm surge
could damage or destroy many coastal buildings.
Forecasters predict the storm will hit
somewhere between Mobile, Alabama
and just north of St. Petersburg,
Florida. Pensacola
Beach and Pensacola are at the center of that area.
Pensacola Beach, along with the rest of possible strike zone, is
under a hurricane warning. The warning is in effect from Mobile east to Anclote
Key on the West Coast of Florida.
A tropical storm warning extends south from the
hurricane warning area, running south to Venice.
A hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning extends
west of Mobile
to Grand Isle, La.
In Mexico,
at least 10 people died and 20 are missing after Olivia passed over the Yucatan peninsula. The
storm caused flooding that drove more than 20,000 people from their homes in
the states of Campeche
and Tabasco .
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