Blame it on Ivan.

Before the hurricane's 40-foot waves crashed ashore, the Stewarts were ordered to flee their town house in Navarre Beach, Fla. Hurriedly, they loaded up and headed north with their two daughters, a dog and two cats.

"There were no rooms available everywhere I tried, and we watched the swath of the hurricane, and we wanted to get away," Jackie Stewart said.

The family landed at a motel in Harlan, where her family's roots are.

But when the power went out in Harlan, the Stewarts loaded up again and drove to the Knights Inn in Lexington, just off Interstate 75.

That's where they'll be indefinitely - stuffed into a 20-foot-by-10-foot room with two double beds and a bathroom, for which they're paying a weekly rate of $228, tax included.

"We'll go back when we can line up housing, but with all the utility and cleanup workers and other families looking for places to stay, we don't know when we can go back," said Lou Stewart, who once worked in Lexington.

They have some money, but they had already spent their savings, and their credit card is maxed out, he said. The Stewarts will be in Lexington at least another week, Jackie Stewart said, and they may end up staying permanently.

A few relatives, including Jackie's father, Bill Day of Lexington, have given money to the stranded family.

"We're hanging on to what we've got, but we'd take help," Lou Stewart said. "I'd swallow my pride for my kids."

Unable to go back to work right now as a salesman for a used-car company, he's trying to get emergency unemployment aid.

The Stewarts said the ordeal has been hard on their daughters, Tasha, 17, and Jasmine, 11, and even harder on their long-haired dachshund, Prince, and their two cats, Bear and Cleo.

Cramped into a strange place, the "animals are getting to each other," Tasha Stewart said.

"We've had a lot of anxiety," Jackie Stewart said.

"Just stress," Lou Stewart said, nodding in agreement.

The Stewarts know it will be six months before they can reoccupy their three-story Florida townhouse, with four bedrooms and 2,500 square feet, across a street from the beach.

They lease it from an owner who has told them the first floor is covered with 4 feet of water, but the building is standing, although it's bowed in the middle.

They're not sure what "bowed in the middle" means.

"We think a big, concrete high-rise across the street saved our house" by blocking high winds, Jackie Stewart said.

She has also learned that her Ford Escort wagon is full of water and sand.

"I think we couldn't believe it would be this bad," she said. "I had bought charcoal and water so we could eat and drink if the hurricane had been downgraded to a Category 2."

"We try to be grateful we're here," Jackie Stewart said.

Said Lou Stewart: "We'd rather be at Disney World."