After Hurricane Floyd, coast better prepared as new season looms

MIAMI - As Hurricane Floyd bore down on the Atlantic coast last September, the Vitkauskas family piled into five cars, hooked their boats to two, and fled inland in a two-hour, bumper-to-bumper crawl.

Shelters overflowed and traffic backed up for 30 miles on major routes as more than 3 million people abandoned coastal areas of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas in the biggest peacetime evacuation in history.

By the time the Vitkauskas caravan crossed out of Florida, their van was breaking down. With every hotel room in the area filled, the family ended up in a mobile home on farm land outside Barney, Ga.

Any future evacuation ''is going to have to be real mandatory for us to do what we did again,'' Mary Ann Vitkauskas said.

Officials preparing for the start Thursday to the 2000 Atlantic hurricane season are hoping better planning by state officials and by coastal residents will prevent a repeat of the chaos.

Forecasters are predicting a period of intense hurricanes during the next two decades. This season, Bill Gray, a Colorado State professor noted for his accuracy in hurricane forecasting, predicted 11 storms would be menacing enough to be named, seven of them hurricanes and three of those major.

Coastal residents and emergency management officials should be preparing now, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said.

''The bottom line is really to ensure that every individual, every family, every business and every community have a hurricane plan,'' he said. ''You can't wait for a hurricane to come knocking at your door before you take a stance.''

In Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, new evacuation plans are in place this year that call for one-way traffic inland on all lanes of major highways. Hurricane-prone states are also trying to improve their communication with coastal residents by adding signs, improving their Internet sites and making evacuation orders more clear.

A recent survey of about 7,000 people who fled during Hurricane Floyd found that many were not ordered to evacuate, and some drove further inland than needed to be safe, said Earl J. Baker, a Florida State University geography professor who helped prepare the study for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers.

''People still visibly remembered the damage that Hurricane Andrew caused,'' said David Bishop, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. ''They saw this hurricane that was twice the size of the state and they got scared.''

This year, Florida officials plan to emphasize to residents the need for evacuation plans that include knowing whether they live in an area that could flood, Bishop said.

The state also plans to post signs along main evacuation routes to tell drivers what radio stations will have official information about the storms and traffic.

Georgia is adding 600 of its own signs with directions to the nearest shelters.

North Carolina is working on ordering evacuations before flood waters make roads impassable.

''We had two interstate highways that were flooded'' during Floyd, said Tom Ditt, of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management. ''When you're losing your road network to flooding, and this has never happened before, the next time it happens you are more prepared.''

The Florida Legislature this year approved $18 million to upgrade schools and other public buildings as shelters. Georgia has identified 200 more shelter spaces and trained 300 extra shelter managers.

Emergency officials have also upgraded their Web sites to offer more up-to-date information about approaching storms and evacuations. In Florida, the Division of Emergency Management Web site is adding links for booking hotel reservations.

Lisa Ray, spokeswoman for Georgia Emergency Management, said her agency's Web site was opened 32,000 times during Hurricane Floyd, about five times the average for a month.

Floyd, which plowed through Florida before hitting North Carolina with 110 mph winds and 20 inches of rain, caused 70 deaths and $6 billion in damage. A month later, Hurricane Irene flooded much of Key West and parts of coast with up to 10 inches of rain.

With the La Nina effect apparently diminishing, forecasters say the 2000 season could be less active than last year, but they say an extended period of intense hurricanes will continue.