University of Miami brochures promote lightly swaying palm trees and football. They never mention that Mother Nature might whimsically rip those trees from the ground, or that you could be tackled when you’re trying to pluck the last gallon of spring water from the shelf at Winn-Dixie.

“It is complete chaos,” Rancourt said Thursday, the day the state that so warmly welcomes students and snowbirds each September essentially ordered them all to get out.

Hurricane Frances was slowly churning toward the east coast of Florida late in the week, packing life-threatening power and a world of uncertainty for at least 2.5 million residents.

Rancourt is a hurricane rookie. But many Floridians have endured this ritual before, and recently. State and federal disaster relief personnel are still surveying the damage from Hurricane Charley, which made landfall Aug. 13, wrought damage in the billions and killed 27 people.

Just three weeks later, storm-savvy locals heard that the impending hit from Frances could rival the fallout from Hurricane Andrew.

Highway bottlenecks

Andrew’s a magic word where Rancourt goes to school. He ravaged the Sunshine State in 1992, leaving a trail of destruction that made our Ice Storm of ’98 look like a Christmas bazaar.

“It’s definitely worrisome to hear that it could be that powerful,” Rancourt said. “I know a lot of kids who are trying to fly home.”

Rancourt, who returned to Miami just after Charley’s rage, considered a trip to Maine for this holiday weekend. But the airports were a mess. So were the interstate highways, bottlenecked as far away as Georgia.

Fortunately for the third-year student, she had somewhere to go. Rancourt’s mother and stepfather own a seasonal home in Estero, in the southwest corner of the state near Fort Myers and Naples.

If the three leading factors in property value are location, location and location, nowhere is this truer than Florida. Three weeks ago, Estero, a community about 15 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, sat in Charley’s possible path. Now, it’s a haven.

Rancourt, who turns 21 in October, carries a cellular phone. Family has called often. By Thursday, Mom seconded the evacuation orders.

Until then, Rancourt played it cool. Blame it on peer pressure.

The rearview mirror

“People were partying earlier this week like it was a big joke. Hey, there’s gonna be a hurricane,'” Rancourt said. “We should be safe at the house, but there won’t be any partying.”

Thursday afternoon, Rancourt led seven friends in two vehicles on a bumper-to-bumper parade down “Alligator Alley,” the highway heading west out of Miami.

Rancourt gambled that both cars would have enough fuel to finish the 150-mile journey. She had waited in a gas station line for 30 minutes Thursday before giving up. And she heard reports of others who sat idly for an hour, only to see that station run out before they arrived at the pumps.

By Wednesday night, university officials had canceled all classes and athletic events through the weekend. Even as her school was being prepared as a shelter, Rancourt said students were concerned about the possibility that parts of Miami could lose power for a week or more.

Shoppers and motorists shared the panic.

“The gas stations are out of control. The grocery stores are mobbed. There’s nothing left on the shelves. People are cleaning them out,” Rancourt said.

Two days before the storm’s expected landfall, Rancourt felt safe. She worried about what was in the rearview mirror, though.

“My friends and I just moved off campus this semester for the first time. We’re in a duplex on the first floor,” she said. “All we could do was take the stuff off the walls and move it away from the windows.

“We hope it’s all there when we get back.”

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at koakes@sunjournal.com.