page_title: Hurricane Jeanne
section_title: Florida
hierarchical_section_title: Hurricane Jeanne / Preparations / Florida
caption_attribution_description: A GOES-12 colorized infrared image of Hurricane Jeanne just after landfall in Florida. Its outer cloud bands stretch from Cuba to South Carolina.
context_page_description: Hurricane Jeanne was a Category 3 hurricane that struck the Caribbean and the Eastern United States in September 2004. It was the deadliest hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Mitch in 1998. It was the tenth named storm, the seventh hurricane, and the fifth major hurricane of the season, as well as the third hurricane and fourth named storm of the season to make landfall in Florida. After wreaking havoc on Hispaniola, Jeanne struggled to reorganize, eventually strengthening and performing a complete loop over the open Atlantic. It headed westwards, strengthening into a Category 3 hurricane and passing over the islands of Great Abaco and Grand Bahama in the Bahamas on September 25. Jeanne made landfall later in the day in Florida just two miles from where Hurricane Frances had struck a mere three weeks earlier.
  Building on the rainfall of Frances and Hurricane Ivan, Jeanne brought near-record flood levels as far north as West Virginia and New Jersey before its remnants turned east into the open Atlantic. Jeanne is blamed for at least 3,006 deaths in Haiti with about 2,800 in Gonaïves alone, which was nearly washed away by floods and mudslides.
context_section_description: Preparations in Central Florida were rushed and sudden, as it did not become apparent that the storm would make a direct hit until the morning of the 23rd. Indeed, it had appeared the storm would pass safely offshore just the night before. Voluntary evacuations were advised on Thursday and Friday, plans for opening shelters on Saturday were distributed to the public, and Florida Power and Light warned that power could be out "for an extended period of time". Canals were also drained on the same day.
  On Friday, the Palm Beach Zoo prepared for the storm by moving small animals and birds into buildings such as restrooms and restaurants. Evacuations began in earnest, with many residents leaving for the Keys, noting that the islands were the only location definitely out of harm's way. For once, evacuation to the Keys made sense.
  The center of Jeanne's eye achieved landfall near Stuart, at virtually the identical spot that Frances had come ashore three weeks earlier, the first time in record keeping that a hurricane made landfall in the same place as a previous storm of the same season. Maximum winds at the time of landfall were estimated to be near 120 m.p.h.
caption: Colorized infrared satellite image of Hurricane Jeanne at the time of landfall in Florida
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2004:09:29 12:41:02", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10092", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "720", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "540"}