The Washington Post
MIAMI – Tropical Storm Gabrielle struck the west Florida coast near Venice on Friday just short of hurricane status, bringing gusting winds, driving rains and some flooding to a state already saturated by a week’s worth of showers.
The storm made landfall about 8 a.m., with maximum winds reaching 70 mph – 4 mph shy of becoming a hurricane – and began a somewhat weakened journey across the state. It was expected to head northeast into the Atlantic Ocean late Friday night, where the warm waters there could cause it to intensify, but meteorologists with the National Hurricane Center here doubted it would threaten the southeastern United States.
About 75 coastal homes in Charlotte County were flooded when the storm created a 5-foot surge, and some beaches on Manasota Key were damaged, local authorities said. There also were extensive power outages and flooded streets and bridges. No injuries were reported.
“The storm gave us a significant hit – not as bad as it could’ve been, but still enough to get our attention,” said Shane Stovall of the Charlotte County emergency management services. “It produced a lot of rain, rolling thunderstorms, and some high winds people hadn’t seen in a while.”
The Miami area, which had been braced for as much as 10 inches of additional rain, was spared somewhat, receiving about 2 inches more Friday from storms related to Gabrielle. South Florida already had gotten more than three inches of rain in the past several days, flooding many streets and parking lots and filling the canal system to capacity.
Gabrielle, which seemed to form suddenly in a low-pressure area in the Gulf of Mexico, was the second tropical storm to hit Florida in what has so far been a relatively light hurricane season. Last month, Tropical Storm Barry, which had similar characteristics, struck the panhandle area with heavy rains.
Two hurricanes continued to spin far out in the Atlantic, without threat to the coast: Felix, strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds, about 1,500 miles southwest of the Azores Islands, and Erin, at 80 mph, off the Newfoundland coast.
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