Isaias strengthens as it crawls up Florida coast
VERO BEACH, FLA. >> Bands of heavy rain from Isaias lashed Florida’s east coast Sunday, with the tropical storm strengthening slightly in the evening on its way up the Eastern seabord.
Officials dealing with surging cases of the coronavirus in Florida kept a close watch on the storm, which weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Saturday afternoon but still brought heavy rain and flooding to Florida’s Atlantic coast.
The National Hurricane Center advised at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday that the storm was about 55 miles off the east coast of Central Florida, and about 385 miles south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
It strengthened slightly earlier in the evening with maximum sustained winds just under a Category 1 hurricane, taking a northnorthwest path, according to the center.
“Don’t be fooled by the downgrade,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned at a news conference after the storm spent hours roughing up the Bahamas.
Upper-level winds took much of the strength out of Isaias, said Stacy Stewart, senior hurricane specialist at the hurricane center in Miami.
“We were expecting a hurricane to develop and it didn’t,” Stewart said Sunday. “It’s a tale of two storms. If you live on the west side of the storm, you didn’t get much. If you live east of the storm, there’s a lot of nasty weather there.”
Authorities closed beaches, parks and virus testing sites, lashing signs to palm trees so they wouldn’t blow away. DeSantis said the state is anticipating power outages and asked residents to have a week’s supply of water, food and medicine on hand. Officials wrestled with how to prepare shelters where people can seek refuge from the storm if necessary, while also safely social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.
In Palm Beach County, about 150 people were in shelters, said emergency management spokeswoman Lisa De La Rionda. The county has a voluntary evacuation order for those living in mobile or manufactured homes, or those who feel their home can’t withstand winds.
“We don’t anticipate many more evacuations,” she said, adding that the evacuees are physically distant from each other and are wearing masks due to the virus.