CHARLESTON, S.C. - After dealing with four storms in a month, South Carolinians were taking no chances Wednesday as Hurricane Frances approached the Bahamas with its 140 mph winds.

In Mount Pleasant, still cleaning up from the nearly hurricane-force winds of Tropical Storm Gaston on Sunday, residents scarfed up hurricane supplies just in case.

"They're buying everything imaginable - everything you would need to prepare for a hurricane," said Al Joseph, the administrative manager of Lowe's home improvement store.

Generators and plywood were brisk sellers.

"It's more hectic than anything we have had this year," he said.

And it has been a hectic year. Hurricane Charley made a second landfall up the coast last month after devastating southwest Florida. On Sunday, Gaston made landfall at nearly the same place.

South Carolina also was threatened by Hurricane Alex and then got heavy rains when Bonnie slipped through the backdoor, coming northeast from the Gulf of Mexico.

The phones began ringing on Monday at Weather Guard Hurricane Protection on Folly Beach as people who suffered damage in Gaston wanted hurricane shutters for future storms.

Then, with Frances aiming for the Southeast coast, came calls from people wanting shutters and wanting them now.

"We had calls yesterday by people wanting shutters by Friday," said Kim Mullis, the administrative assistant at the company.

But it doesn't work that way. The shutters are custom made and homes need to be measured, she said.

"We told some people it would be several months until we could get to them and they said fine as long as we get them on the list," she said.

The late morning advisory from the National Hurricane Center indicated Frances could make landfall early Saturday on the Florida east coast and then track into southwest Georgia.

But forecasters warned residents to be wary and not consider just a track line but the larger, potential track area. And that potential 4-5 day track included all of South Carolina except the northeast coast.

The Department of Public Safety held news conferences in Beaufort and North Charleston to remind residents about evacuation routes. Officials said if and when Gov. Mark Sanford calls for evacuations, plans are in place to reverse the eastbound lanes of Interstate 26.

"Our advice ... is you think about it and if a voluntary evacuation order is issued, you react sooner instead of later," said James Schweitzer, the department's director.

Highway Patrol Lt. Col. Harry Stubblefield, the state's traffic czar, said evacuation routes are designed to move people west from the coast. He suggested evacuees stay on the designated routes and not try to find shortcuts that will only slow them and the evacuation down.

Joe Farmer of the state Emergency Management Division said officials expected to have a better idea of the storm's eventual landfall early Thursday.

State officials were monitoring the storm and, at least twice a day, holding conference calls with emergency managers from the coastal counties and forecasters at the Hurricane Center, he said.

Farmer urged residents to watch the storm closely with the Labor Day weekend approaching.

"We are not asking people to go out and buy storm shutters and we are not asking people to change their plans," he said. "We are asking people to factor in the storm when they make plans."

He said the state would likely have to deal with the storm even if it makes landfall in Florida. Frances could spin rain into South Carolina and evacuees from that state would head north on Interstate 95, he said.

The threat of the storm likely will affect travel in the state this weekend, according to figures from AAA Carolinas.

The motor club said about 394,000 people in South Carolina are expected to travel more than 50 miles from home during the long weekend, about the same number as last Labor Day.

Nationally, more than 34 million people are expected on the roads, up more than 2 percent from last year.

Gaston dropped an estimated 13 inches of rain in some areas of the state and now farmers, faced with the possibility of more rain from Frances, are hurrying to harvest tobacco and corn.

And there is concern about damage to soybeans and cotton.

"Conditions were already wet and Tropical Storm Gaston just complicated things where farmers can't get their machinery in the field to harvest the crop," said Kyle Daniel with Georgetown County Farm Service Agency.