Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303280041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CORAL GABLES, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
To better grasp its extent, the National Hurricane Center compared it with a computer simulation of a Category 1 storm with wind of 74 mph, the minimum for a storm to be called a hurricane.
The computer model is eerily consistent with reports of conditions in the storm, blamed for more than 200 deaths from Cuba to Nova Scotia, 47 of them in Florida alone. It brought blizzard conditions to much of the East as a blizzard.
"We know the winds were that high [hurricane strength] because it happened - we can see direct evidence of it," said Pinellas County Emergency Management Director David Bilodeau.
"We've got reports of a 6-foot storm surge at the mouth of the Anclote River, for example, and computer simulations put the surge from a Category 1 storm there at about 6.3 feet," he said.
A hurricane's fiercest wind might be found in an area 20 to 30 miles wide; however, the computer had to simulate a hurricane's approach hundreds of times along the coast to reflect the breadth of the storm.
Hurricane-strength gusts were relatively common in the storm, but some coastal areas recorded wind blowing at sustained speeds in hurricane range.
In Franklin County, Fla., the weather service reported gusts to 110 mph and sustained wind of about 80 mph. To the east in Taylor, Dixie and Levy counties, storm surges of 11 feet were reported.
"The water was somewhere between 9 and 12 feet in Yankeetown," Levy County Sheriff Ted Glass said. "If we stood where the high tide line had been before, I would have had water 3 to 4 feet over my head, and I'm 6-foot-1."
by CNB