Hurricane Warning Issued for Florida

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Authorities issued a hurricane warning Monday and called for evacuations along Florida’s Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, unexpectedly gained strength.

Forecasters warned that some areas could see a storm surge of up to 10 feet. Rain was already falling and two tornados had formed, although no injuries or damage were reported, the National Weather Service said.

“We’re talking about powerful forces of nature,” Gov. Jeb Bush said. “People need to take this very seriously.”

Bush signed an emergency declaration allowing Bush to call up the National Guard and put in place laws against price gouging.

He said mandatory evacuation orders had been posted for about 100 miles of low-lying coastal area along the gulf coast, stretching from an area just south of Tallahassee to Citrus County, north of Tampa. Other evacuations are possible as the storm gets closer.

“If you are ordered to evacuate, you really should do it,” Bush said.

Meteorologists initially thought Alberto wouldn’t reach hurricane strength, but the storm’s sustained wind accelerated from 50 mph to 70 mph in a three-hour period Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. The minimum wind speed for a hurricane is 74 mph.

“This potentially could be a hurricane, it has a potential wide impact for a lot of people in our state,” Bush told the emergency response team monitoring the storm in Tallahassee.

The hurricane warning, extending about 200 miles from Longboat Key near Sarasota to the Ochlockonee River south of Tallahassee, meant Alberto was expected to produce hurricane conditions within the next 24 hours.

The hurricane center predicted coastal storm surges of 8 feet to 10 feet, with flooding possible along an extensive section of the Gulf Coast. Four to 10 inches of rain was expected on the peninsula through Tuesday.

At 2 p.m. EDT, Alberto was centered about 180 miles southwest of Cedar Key and was moving northeast at about 10 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Its top sustained wind speed remained at 70 mph, unchanged from 11 a.m., the center said.

Alberto’s core wasn’t expected to reach Florida until Tuesday, but with tropical storm-force wind stretching 230 miles from the center, powerful gusts may be felt long before it makes landfall.

Workers at a marina in St. Petersburg said they planned to work through the night securing more than 600 boats against the wind and waves.

“This is a little earlier that I expected,” said St. Petersburg Marina and Port Manager Walter Miller. “But we’ve had a bad couple of years, so it’s not entirely unexpected.”

The prospect of rain _ as long as it didn’t come with hurricane-force wind _ was welcomed by firefighters who have been battling wildfires for six weeks on Florida’s Atlantic coast. The majority of Florida, from Fort Lauderdale to the Panhandle, is as much as 50 percent below normal rainfall, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jud Ladd.

Ladd said two tornadoes were reported in the morning, one in Hardee County and the other in Polk County.

The tropical depression that produced Alberto formed Saturday, nine days after the official start of the hurricane season.

Alberto drenched Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province and Havana throughout the weekend, causing minor street flooding. The official Prensa Latina news agency reported Monday a handful of old buildings around Havana crumbled but there were no immediate reports of other major damage or injuries.

Scientists say the 2006 season could produce as many as 16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes.

Last year’s hurricane season was the most destructive on record and the busiest in 154 years of storm tracking, with a record 28 named storms and a record 15 hurricanes. The first named storm of 2005, Tropical Storm Arlene, formed June 9 and made landfall just west of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.


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