Tampa, Fla. ? Officials warned about a million residents and tourists along Florida’s Gulf Coast Thursday to get out of the way of Hurricane Charley, saying parts of Tampa’s downtown and nearby areas could be submerged by the massive storm surge likely when the hurricane strikes on Friday.

Eastbound traffic heading toward Tampa, Fla., moves slowly as people evacuate Pinellas County because of Hurricane Charley. Charley grew in force Thursday as it churned toward Florida's Gulf Coast, and about 800,000 people from the Florida Keys to Tampa Bay were urged to evacuate as the state braced for 100 mph winds, heavy rain and swirling tornadoes.

“It does have the potential of devastating impact. … This is a scary, scary thing,” Gov. Jeb Bush said.

The evacuation zone stretched along Florida’s west coast from Key West to north of Tampa.

Charlie was expected to pass west of the Keys at Florida’s tip early today before hitting the Tampa Bay area in the afternoon with winds up to 120 mph, heavy rain, tornadoes and the dangerous storm surge, said Hugh Cobb, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. With winds that high, it would be a powerful Category 3 hurricane.

Residents of the Tampa Bay area, where the eye is projected to hit, southward to the Naples area were told to expect a storm surge of 10-13 feet. State meteorologist Ben Nelson said the surge could reach 16 feet in the Tampa area if Charley reached 120 mph wind.

The bulk of the evacuations were in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, which include Tampa and St. Petersburg, a city that sits on a peninsula.

A waterspout drops from the clouds over the Gulf of Mexico before Hurricane Charley reached land near Santibel Island in Fort Myers, Fla. The residents of Sanibel Island were issued a mandatory evacuation earlier in the day.

All residents of MacDill Air Force Base, on another peninsula in Tampa Bay, were ordered out, with only essential personnel remaining. MacDill is home to U.S. Central Command, the nerve center of the war in Iraq.

“MacDill Air Force Base will probably be mostly underwater and parts of downtown Tampa could be underwater if we have a Category 3,” Nelson said. “In a Category 3, you can almost get to the point where Pinellas County becomes an island.”

Heavy traffic flowed across the three Tampa Bay bridges linking Pinellas with Hillsborough and the mainland.

“There will be a period of time where if you stay behind and you change your mind and you want to be rescued, no one can help you. We aren’t going to go out on a suicide mission,” Pinellas Emergency Management Chief Gary Vickers said.