Former Decatur residents among those bracing for Dorian to strike Florida

Aug. 31--As Hurricane Dorian barrels toward the coast of Florida, a number of former Decatur residents are among those stocking up supplies, boarding up windows and hoping for the best.

Others are making evacuation plans, as forecasts on Friday evening warned Dorian could bring 140 mph winds and torrential rains late Monday or early Tuesday. Some computer models predicted a turn northward that would have Dorian hug the coast, delivering a glancing blow, the National Hurricane Center said.

The faint, encouraging signs came at the end of a day in which Dorian seemed to get scarier with each forecast update. It strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane Friday evening, and there were fears it could prove to be the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida's east coast in nearly 30 years.

"I think the feeling right now, is more fear of the unknown," said Melissa Leischner-Brandt, who has witnessed six hurricanes since she moved to Florida from her hometown of Decatur 20 years ago. "We have no control over it."

Leischner-Brandt now lives in Titusville, Florida, where she and her family have recently moved into a retirement community mobile home. Depending on the route of the storm, they may seek shelter in a hotel in Orlando where they have reservations.

"A lot of homeowners are just staying put, and we always have, but the only difference now is what we live in," she said. "If we still lived in our old home, we probably would just buckle down and ride it out."

Late Friday, the National Hurricane Center's projected new track showed Dorian hitting near Fort Pierce, some 70 miles north of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, then running along the coastline as it moved north. But forecasters cautioned that the storm's track was still highly uncertain and even a small deviation could put Dorian offshore or well inland.

Trump declared a state of emergency in Florida and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster-relief efforts. Major airlines began allowing travelers to change their reservations without a fee. The big cruise lines began rerouting their ships. Disney World and the other resorts in Orlando found themselves in the storm's projected path.

Still, with Dorian days away and its track uncertain, Disney and other major resorts held off announcing any closings, and Florida authorities ordered no immediate mass evacuations.

"Sometimes if you evacuate too soon, you may evacuate into the path of the storm if it changes," Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

Beyond preparing herself, husband and two dogs to ride out the storm, Cheryl Clark-Griffiths has also been working to help prepare people in assisted living through her job as office manager at My Health Shaw Medical Group.

"Our concern all week was getting their medicine to them and enough of it so they wouldn't go without," said Clark-Griffiths, who moved from Decatur in 1983. She now lives in Grant, Florida, about 80 miles southeast of Orlando.

"We planned ahead of time and had the pharmacies deliver extra medicine all week," she said. "Typically they do one delivery a day to each facility, but they were making several trips each day to multiple facilities. We don't know what the road conditions will be like once the storm hits so the extra supply of medicine is necessary."

Another concern is that gas stations are running out of fuel. The governor said the Florida Highway Patrol would begin escorting fuel trucks to help them get past the lines of waiting motorists and replenish gas stations.

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"As soon as they started reporting, within a day, the gas stations were running out of fuel and the stores' shelves had been cleared out," said Megan McCauley, 27.

She and her two roommates, all from Decatur, live in Haines City, about 40 miles southwest of Orlando. They are working to prepare their house with sheets on the windows and water in the bathtub that can be used to flush toilets.

McCauley said she and her roommates are concerned about the possibility of flooding and tornadoes, which local residents have told them can follow hurricanes. "We are very worried about that," she said. "Our house is not equipped for tornadoes, so we don't really know what to do."

William Emmerich, a former Decatur resident now living in Apopka on the north side of Orlando, said Friday that he had gathered the basic essentials -- water, canned food and flashlights -- but was still waiting to see how the storm's path would progress.

Emmerich, 34, also went through Hurricane Irma two years ago, when he had to spend several nights in a hotel after the power went out in his home. He said FEMA provided reimbursement for the hotel stay.

He saw some positive signs in the forecast regarding Dorian's path. "Orlando isn't supposed to be hit as bad," he said, "and the storm will have diminished by the time it gets to us."

As of 7 p.m., Dorian was centered about 575 miles east of West Palm Beach with winds of 125 mph. It was moving northwest at an ever-slower 10 mph. Forecasters warned that its slow movement could subject the state to a prolonged and destructive pummeling from wind, storm surge and heavy rain.

Coastal areas could get 6 to 12 inches of rain, with 18 inches in some places, triggering life-threatening flash floods, the hurricane center said. FEMA official Jeff Byard said Dorian is likely to "create a lot of havoc" for roads, power and other infrastructure.

Also imperiled were the Bahamas, where canned food and bottled water were disappearing quickly and the sound of hammering echoed across the islands as people boarded up their homes. Dorian was expected to hit by Sunday with the potential for life-threatening storm surge that could raise water levels 15 feet above normal.

"Do not be foolish and try to brave out this hurricane," Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said. "The price you may pay for not evacuating is your life."

Florida's governor urged nursing homes to take precautions to prevent tragedies like the one during Hurricane Irma, when the storm knocked out the air conditioning at a facility in Hollywood and 12 patients died in the sweltering heat. Four employees of the home were charged with manslaughter earlier this week.

DeSantis said the timely message from those arrests is: "It's your responsibility to make sure you have a plan in place to protect those folks."

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA moved a 380-foot-high mobile launch platform to the safety of the colossal Vehicle Assembly Building, built to withstand 125 mph wind. The launcher is for the mega rocket that NASA is developing to take astronauts to the moon.

The hurricane season typically peaks between mid-August and late October. One of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S. was on Labor Day 1935. The unnamed Category 5 hurricane crashed ashore along Florida's Gulf Coast on Sept. 2. It was blamed for over 400 deaths.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Contact Analisa Trofimuk at (217) 421-7985. Follow her on Twitter: @AnalisaTro

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