Deadly Hurricane Jeanne strengthened rapidly as it crossed the northern Bahamas today on its way to deliver a record fourth hurricane strike in one season Florida.
Up to three million storm-weary Floridians were told to evacuate coastal islands, mobile homes and flood-prone areas. Others battened down the hatches one more time, stocking up on batteries, water and gasoline and shuttering homes, or streamed into public shelters.
Many on the storm-scarred Atlantic coast, emboldened by having survived Hurricane Frances three weeks ago, vowed to remain at home, an act of defiance that alarmed authorities.
As Jeanne's 115 mph winds, up from 105 mph overnight, and 8-foot storm surge lashed Great Abaco island in the Bahamas, a 700-island chain of 300,000 people stretching from Haiti to off the Florida coast, US officials urged residents not to be complacent.
Florida's Govorner Mr Jeb Bush said people living in Florida's coastal areas could not assume they could ride out Jeanne just because they had survived the previous hurricanes.
"People on the barrier islands who think they can ride this storm out should think again," Mr Bush, brother of President George W Bush, told reporters. "It is getting bigger and stronger."
The US National Hurricane Center warned the storm, now a strong Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, could strengthen further over warm water between the Bahamas and the southeastern United States.
State officials said computer models showed 4.7 million of Florida's 17 million people were in harm's way, and estimated that 1.2 million buildings could be damaged, leaving around 142,000 families without homes.
In some parts of the likely strike zone near Ft. Pierce in St. Lucie county, home owners have barely had time to patch over damaged roofs with blue tarpaulin, or to clear piles of tree limbs and debris left behind by Hurricane Frances, or the soggy remnants of Hurricane Ivan last week.
"It's horrible. This is just unprecedented," said St. Lucie county emergency management spokeswoman Ms Linette Trabulsy.
In the Bahamas, residents of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco islands, both still recovering from the ravages of Frances, packed into shelters.