Fay gains strength over Everglades
Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
NAPLES, Fla. — Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in southwestern Florida on Tuesday without much fanfare but stubbornly hung around, maintaining strength and threatening once again to become a hurricane.
The storm first hit the Florida Keys, veered out to sea and then traversed east across the state on a path that would curve it toward to the Florida-Georgia border. The failure of Fay to weaken meant a whole new swath of the state had to prepare for a worse storm and Florida could wind up getting hit three separate times.
“This storm is going to be with us for a while. That’s obvious now. It looks it could be a boomerang storm,” Gov. Charlie Crist said at a news conference.
Earlier in the day it had appeared that Fay would simply peter out and perhaps carry nothing but heavy rains to the southeastern United States. But by late Tuesday a hurricane watch was posted for parts of north Florida and Georgia as Fay seemed to gain new power from the flat, swampy Everglades. The situation increased the chances Fay could strengthen into a hurricane. Its top sustained winds grew for several hours during the day and peaked at 65 mph before dropping to 50 mph late Tuesday. A hurricane has winds of at least 74 mph.
Forecasters expected the storm to get a dose of energy today when it moves over the Atlantic Ocean, where it could reach hurricane strength.
At 10 p.m. CDT the center of the storm was near latitude 27. 7 north and longitude 80. 7 west, or about 30 miles south-southwest of Melbourne, and forecasters expected it to head north-northeast about 5 mph overnight.
Eric Blake, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center, urged people not to focus too much on whether Fay was a tropical storm or a hurricane because either can cause damage. Fay had fallen short of predictions that it could be a Category 1 hurricane when it came ashore in southwest Florida on Tuesday morning.
“A strong tropical storm can be very significant,” he said, pointing to wind damage in the state’s interior and the possibility of flooding from up to 15 inches expected in parts of central Florida.
Fay formed over the weekend in the Atlantic and was blamed for 14 deaths in the Caribbean before hitting Florida.
Though it flooded streets in Naples, downed trees and plunged some 95, 000 homes and businesses into darkness, most Floridians thought they had dodged a bullet. The worst of the storm’s wrath apparently came when a tornado hit 51 homes in Brevard County, southeast of Orlando. The twister destroyed nine of the homes said Brevard County Emergency Operations Center spokesman David Waters. Brevard County sheriff’s deputies arrested three men accused of looting in a mobile home park, and a trapper was called to remove an alligator discovered wandering there. Two injuries were reported in the Brevard County tornado, and a kite surfer caught in a gust of wind Monday was critically injured when he slammed into a building in front of the beach near Fort Lauderdale. Kevin Kearney, 28, remained in critical condition Tuesday, Broward General Medical Center officials and his family said.
Street flooding presented the worst problem inn South Florida, where most businesses even chose to go without any shutters or other window protection. Farther north farmers in drought-stricken North and South Carolina were hoping for a drenching from Fay but may have to keep their fingers crossed a few more days. A high- pressure system had the potential to stall the storm over the Florida-Georgia border. Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Orkin Emmanuel, Brian Skoloff, Kelli Kennedy, Travis Reed, Christine Armario, Tamara Lush, Bill Kaczor, Brendan Farrington and Sarah Larimer of The Associated Press.
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