As Bianka Krausch and Jeff Brook strolled through the deserted, wind-swept streets of Miami Beach’s tourist mecca South Beach Friday, they had very different ideas of how to face Hurricane Frances.
“I’m definitely staying,” said Krausch, a newcomer to Florida hurricanes. “Not a chance,” said Brook, a Hurricane Andrew veteran. “I’m out of here.”
With evacuation orders in effect for an estimated 2.5 million Floridians living in coastal areas or on crowded barrier islands like Miami Beach, the decision to stay or go can be an agonizing one. Where to go? What to do with pets? When can I come back?
As usual, thousands will ignore the warnings to move inland to public shelters or the homes of relatives and friends.
In South Beach, an overcrowded neighborhood of waterfront concrete towers and tiny Art Deco hotels, lots of people decided to ride it out, unconcerned or unaware the island could be flooded, or cut off, for days after a direct hit.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Krausch, 25. ”Almost everyone in my building is staying. It’s a strong concrete building.”
“She may be fishing off her balcony,” said Brook. “But in the worst case she should be able to hide in a stairwell and do OK.”
Many who endured 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, the storm by which all others are measured in Florida, remember retreating to bathrooms and closets as fierce 150 mph winds buckled walls, tore off roofs and blasted out windows in Miami’s southern suburbs.
Brook weathered Andrew in one of the worst-hit areas and gave no consideration to going through it again. Andrew was one of the most powerful storms on record and caused more than $25 billion in damage, making it the costliest in U.S. history.
“After Andrew, you just don’t want to take a chance.”
Miami Beach is one area that most concerns local disaster planners. It is only a few feet above sea level, densely populated, linked to the mainland by bridges and low-lying roadways, and peopled by tourists, lots of senior citizens and young newcomers who have never been through a hurricane.
But the decision to evacuate, or not, often comes down to personal considerations.
“I’m disabled, I have my dog, I have no relatives and I take 15 prescriptions a day. Where am I going to go with that portable drug store?” said Dan Simpson, 63, who decided to place his trust in his strong concrete apartment building.
Simpson, who was walking his basset hound, Rocky, Friday morning near shuttered shops and homes, said he was prepared --with six cans of Spam and some corned beef hash -- to wait it out for days with no electricity or other services.
Erik Binas, 82, couldn’t decide whether to leave his sturdy bayfront condo.
“I’d like to stay. I don’t really have any place to go,” he said. “Do you think a lot of people are staying? I will feel better if there are a lot of others here.”
