FORT LAUDERDALE (AP) — The weather was getting worse in southern Florida early Tuesday as Tropical Storm Elsa began lashing the Florida Keys, complicating the search for survivors in the condo collapse and prompting a hurricane watch for the peninsula's upper Gulf Coast.
In addition to damaging winds and heavy rains, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges, flooding and isolated tornadoes. A hurricane watch was issued for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River in Florida's Big Bend area.
Bands of rain were expected to reach Surfside on Florida's Atlantic coast, soaking the rubble of the Champlain Towers South, which collapsed June 24, taking the lives of at least 28 people and leaving 117 people missing. Search and rescue crews have worked through rain, but must pause when lightning threatens, and a garage area in the pancaked debris already filled with water on Monday, officials said.
Elsa’s maximum sustained winds are strengthening and the storm could be near hurricane strength before it makes landfall in Florida.
Three to 5 inches of rainfall with localized totals of up to 8 inches of rain are expected through Wednesday across the Keys and into southwest and western portions of the Florida Peninsula. The forecast included the possibility of tornadoes across South Florida Tuesday morning and across the upper peninsula later in the day.
Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded a state of emergency to cover a dozen counties where Elsa was expected to make a swift passage on Wednesday, and President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state ahead of the storm.
Forecasters predicted Elsa would hit coastal Georgia and South Carolina after Florida. Georgia's coast was under a tropical storm watch, as was the South Carolina coast from the Mouth of St. Marys River to South Santee River. Forecasters said tornadoes could strike in the eastern Carolinas and Virginia as Elsa moves north.
The storm surge could reach five feet over normally dry land in the Tampa Bay area if Elsa passes at high tide, forecasters said. Commander Col. Ben Jonsson said only essential personnel were being allowed Tuesday morning on MacDill Air Force Base, which is located along the bay on the South Tampa peninsula. Tampa International Airport planned to shut down Tuesday at 5 p.m.
At a Tuesday morning news briefing, DeSantis reminded residents not to focus on the Tropical Storm Elsa’s so-called “cone of concern” because the storm’s “impacts are expected well outside that area.”
“And if you look at how the storm is it’s incredibly lopsided to the east,” DeSantis said. “So most of the rainfall is going to be east of the center of the storm.”
Elsa’s westward shift spared the lower Florida Keys a direct hit, but the islands were still getting plenty of rain and wind Tuesday. Tropical storm warnings were posted for the Florida Keys from Craig Key westward to the Dry Tortugas and for the west coast of Florida from Flamingo northward to the Ochlockonee River.
Margarita Pedroza, who lives on a boat off Key West, says that a stronger storm would have forced her ashore, but she was riding this one out. "Just batten down the hatches and get ready for it,” she told the television station.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s as strong as some of the other storms that have come around, so hopefully the winds won’t be as strong and maybe it’ll be some rain, but hopefully not too much rain,” she said.
Elsa was the first hurricane of the Atlantic season until Saturday morning and caused widespread damage on several eastern Caribbean islands Friday.
Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.