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Fay continues slow path across Florida

Georgia resident Joyce Matthews looks at one of four kittens she helped rescue from rocks near a pier in St. Simons Island, Georgia, on Thursday. The kittens were stuck on the rocks as the high tide and big waves threatened to wash them away. PHOTO: AP

Tropical Storm Fay continued its slow, wet trudge across the state yesterday, prompting communities farther inland and on the state’s Gulf coast to brace for what could be drenching rains.

The erratic storm has dumped more than 500mm of rain along parts of Florida’s low-lying central Atlantic coast.

It is just the fourth storm to make landfall in Florida with such strength three separate times and the first in nearly 50 years.

Before it eases across the panhandle by the weekend, it could bring buckets of rain.

Two people drowned in heavy surf on Thursday as the storm came ashore in Flagler Beach, nudging Fay’s total death toll to 25 after Haiti discovered three more bodies. The drownings were the first US deaths directly caused by the storm.

US President George W. Bush issued a federal disaster declaration on Thursday for the affected parts of Florida, as hundreds of residents fled floodwaters that drove alligators and snakes out of their habitats and into streets.

Susan and Gary Redwine of Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, got sick of sitting inside for three days and decided to hop onto their kayaks for a cruise through the neighborhood.

“It’s the only dry way to get around. It’s not like you can go jogging or anything,” 49-year-old Gary Redwine said.

Emergency officials planned to begin surveying damage along the coast yesterday as the floodwaters were expected to slowly recede.

The storm first made landfall in the Florida Keys earlier this week, then headed out over open water again before hitting a second time near Naples. It then advanced slowly across the state, popped back out into the Atlantic Ocean and struck again.

Flooding was especially acute along Florida’s Atlantic coast from Port St Lucie to Cape Canaveral, with water reaching depths of 1.5m and more in some neighborhoods.

“This is the worst I’ve absolutely ever seen it,” said Mike White, 57, after he was rescued by the National Guard from floodwaters lapping at the doorstep of his mobile home.

At 2am yesterday the storm’s center was located about 80km west-northwest of Daytona Beach and moving west at 8kph, the National Hurricane Center said. Its maximum sustained winds had decreased to 80kph and it was forecast to gradually weaken.

In Neptune Beach on Thursday, police said an Indiana tourist drowned after going swimming in a rough ocean churned up by the storm.

To the south in Volusia County, authorities said Fatmira Krkuti, 35, of Brooklyn, New York, also drowned in Fay-generated waves.

In some flooded areas, residents were warned to keep watch for alligators, snakes and other wildlife forced from their habitats and swimming in search of dry land.

At least two alligators were captured in residential neighborhoods and several others spotted.
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