Tropical Storm Fay hits Florida
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Tropical Storm Fay has sloshed through central Florida with severe winds and drenching rains but it has spared the area from more devastating hurricane fury as it slowly crossed toward the Atlantic.
Millions from Miami to St Petersburg kept indoors as the storm knocked power out to some 93,000 people.
All of Florida was under a state of emergency, although surfers braved the elements to ride the storm-driven swells.
Television footage showed houses with roofs torn off and heavy flooding in coastal areas.
Few injuries have been reported, but a kiteboarder testing the high winds and surf in Fort Lauderdale was carried by the strong gusts onto shore and hurled into a building, leaving him in serious condition.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) expects Fay, which claimed dozens of lives around the Caribbean over the weekend, to weaken while it is over land, although the storm could roar back to life if it heads out over the Atlantic, as some computer models predict it could.
The biggest concern now, officials say, is that the weather system could spawn tornadoes and severe flooding across the Sunshine State.
As much as 400 millimetres of rainfall could fall over parts of south and east-central Florida, the NHC said.
In the Caribbean over the weekend, Fay left a trail of death and destruction, particularly in Haiti, where a truck carrying around 60 passengers plunged into a swollen river.
In Florida meanwhile, authorities ordered the evacuation of tourists and closed schools in the Florida Keys and counties to the north.
In Key West, shelters were set up in case residents were also forced to abandon their homes and flights were cancelled.
- AFP
