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
CEDAR KEY BEACON

CEDAR KEY- Hurricane Olivia has now grown to a category-four hurricane and is headed toward the Cedar Key area. Remaining Cedar Key residents and tourists are waiting for the new mayor to choose between a forced evacuation and letting people decide for themselves.

Many Cedar Key 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 Yankeetown and low-lying areas of the lower Suwannee City evacuated by noon today. Public schools also were ordered closed.

• Dixie County today ordered an evacuation of all areas west of U.S. Highway 19, which includes parts of Horseshoe Point and Cross City.

• Neighboring Citrus County asked for a voluntary evacuation of Crystal River.

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.

Cedar Key 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 28.1 north latitude and 86.4 west longitude, or about 150 miles south-southwest of Cedar Key.

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 Pensacola Beach and just north of St. Petersburg, Florida. Cedar Key and the Lower Suwannee are at the center of that area.

Cedar Key, along with the rest of possible strike zone, is under a hurricane warning. The warning is in effect from Pensacola Beach east to Crystal River 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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