Forecasters: Florida Should Prepare For Cat. 1-2 Hurricane

KEY WEST - Residents and tourists in the Florida Keys prepared Saturday for Tropical Storm Fay, which forecasters said could strengthen to a hurricane and begin battering the island chain as soon as Monday.Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declared a state of emergency because Fay "threatens the state of Florida with a major disaster," he wrote in an executive order. Forecasters predicted Saturday afternoon that the sixth named storm of the 2008 season would make landfall somewhere along western coast of Florida on Tuesday as a hurricane, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.Officials in the Keys' Monroe County said they were considering whether to order an evacuation on Sunday. Traffic during evacuations can back up for miles on the single highway linking the islands to Florida's mainland.Besides damage from high winds, the low-lying archipelago would likely suffer flooding from Fay's storm surge. The storm caused flooding on Saturday that killed four people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
To read more go to:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/aug/16/gov-declares-state-emergency-fay-eyes-florida/imwY/
For more information go to:
http://www.floridadisaster.gov/
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