- October 27, 2024
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Tropical Storm Elsa remained poised to strike the largely rural Big Bend region by late Wednesday morning and bring the potential for flash flooding to rivers across North Florida.
As of 6 a.m. Wednesday, about 26,000 Floridians had lost electricity because of the storm. But Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a morning news conference that the outlook was much-improved from earlier forecasts that showed the system gaining strength as it moved from the Caribbean through the Gulf of Mexico.
“I think one of the things we’re going to be looking at in the days ahead is, what’s that (the storm) going to do for the rivers and some of the flood risks,” DeSantis said during the news conference at the state Emergency Operations Center. “That area of Florida has been very saturated.”
At 8 a.m. Wednesday, Elsa was about 31 miles west of Cedar Key, or 115 miles northwest of Tampa, in the gulf. The system, which weakened after growing to hurricane status on Tuesday, was moving north at 14 mph and packing 65 mph sustained winds.
A hurricane warning remained in effect on the West Coast from Chassahowitzka in Citrus County to the Steinhatchee River at the border of Dixie and Taylor counties. The warning includes Cedar Key and other areas of Levy County.
After Elsa makes landfall, the National Hurricane Center anticipated the storm to turn north-northeast late Wednesday afternoon and move rapidly across Georgia, the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic states through Thursday.
DeSantis said more than 10,000 workers were prepared to respond to power outages, and the state is ready to provide assistance where needed.
The system “wobbled” to the west overnight on Tuesday, minimizing impacts to Tampa, DeSantis said. However, DeSantis cautioned people not to become complacent.
