Tropical Storm Emily causes Fla. outages
Fishermen rescued from Tampa Bay; system weakened.
Tropical Storm Emily weakened to a tropical depression Monday afternoon as it slogged eastward across the Flor
ida peninsula, spreading drenching rains, causing power outages and leaving two fishermen to be rescued from Tampa Bay.
The National Hurricane Center said Emily made landfall late Monday on Florida’s Gulf Coast south of Tampa Bay and then began moving east toward the Atlantic coast. Emily spent only a few hours as a tropical storm, losing strength as it marched inland across the central Florida peninsula toward the Atlantic coast.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said at an afternoon news briefing in the state capital of Tallahassee that about 18,000 homes and businesses lost power, mostly in hard-hit Manatee County.
Scott, who was on vacation in Maine and returned to the state when the advi- sory changed, said the storm was a reminder that severe weather can strike the state at any time.
State emergency management officials also said that the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, which was closed for a few hours because of high winds, had since reopened.
The storm had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph as it crawled ashore but was down to top winds of 35 mph hours later.
No injuries have been reported along the Gulf Coast, although two fishermen were rescued from Tampa Bay while clinging to a channel marker light after their boat sank. Coast Guard officials said
they were called Monday morning about t he two brothers, who had been out fishing when their boat engine died. While the brothers worked on the inoperable pump, the boat drifted and struck the range light, according to a Coast Guard statement.
Forecasters said Emily was expected to dump between 2 to 4 inches of rain in some areas, with isolated amounts up to 8 inches possible in spots. Lesser amounts were predicted elsewhere.
On Treasure Island, a bar- rier island in the Gulf of Mexico west of St. Petersburg, a normally packed beach park- ing lot was almost empty of tourists Monday. Only a handful of people were on the beach and a few body- surfed small waves in an area that doesn’t normally get waves.
A flood watch is in effect for much of the Tampa area, raising the threat of some scattered street flooding in low-lying areas. Law enforce- ment agencies urged motor- ists to drive with caution.
Earlier Monday, Scott declared a state of emergency for 31 of the state’s 67 counties as a precaution.