TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Crazy Fay Leaves County Soaked

ADVERTISEMENT

By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: August 21, 2008

SEBRING - After it made landfall in the Keys, Fay surged north off Florida's west coast. Then it made landfall a second time when entering the peninsula. Then slowed down. It sped up. It turned.

Before it's all over, Tropical Storm Fay will have departed Florida at Cape Canaveral, twisted around like a pretzel, made landfall a third time, headed across the Florida Panhandle, go out into the Gulf of Mexico again, and maybe make landfall in the Sunshine State for a fourth time.

And sometime during all that, Fay may finally become a hurricane.

That seemed to be the assessment Wednesday at the Emergency Operations Center debriefing. At 8 a.m., director Bill Nichols confessed, the slow-moving storm looked as if it had no punch at all. It would simply blow in, drop six inches of rain, and scoot right out.

As of Wednesday morning, the 35 city and county officials gathered at the EOC knew of no structural damage. The highest wind gust was a mere 54 mph. Sustained winds averaged 25-30 mph.

Todd Barron, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin, agreed. The highest wind their instruments recorded was 47 knots, or 54 mph, about 3:45 p.m. in Sebring.

But after Nichols told the hurricane shelter managers that people could go home if they wanted, Martha Brown said some of the 79 people who spent Tuesday night didn't want to go home on Wednesday morning. The weather kept getting worse as the afternoon wore on.

"Some came early and stayed late," said Brown.

"You're right," Nichols said. "I'm surprised it lingered like it did."

While Fay was overstaying its welcome, the storm flooded the low-lying areas of Highlands County. A fire broke out in a double-wide manufactured home north of Lorida, said Highlands County fire supervisor Jimmy Branca. He didn't know if the cause was storm related.

EMS and fire crews from the county, Lorida VFD, DeSoto City, Leisure Lakes and West Sebring responded, then were faced with an entire subdivision that was encircled by water. Because they were called from several miles away, and because they had to stop and find a road across from the burning home, the home was destroyed, even though Fay was pouring water from the sky.

There were no injuries from the fire, and no injuries were reported around the county or the cities.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse the county and cities for what they spent repairing drainage channels, pumping facilities, levees, dams and the like. Nichols asked for an estimate from each county and city agency by 1 p.m. Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the eye of the storm was expected to track through the eastern half of Highlands County, but before erratic Fay got here, the eastern half went over the warm water of Lake Okeechobee, said meteorologist Barron, and the storm turned to the west and only touched the southeast corner of the county.

"Highlands got the highest rainfall totals and the highest winds," said Barron. Of course, that didn't count the East Coast, where Fay was stalling as Barron spoke. The storm actually got stronger while its eastern half was hanging over Lake Okeechobee, he said.

"It's an unusual thing to gain strength over land," Barron said.

There was no damage at the Sebring and Avon Park airports, the managers said.

"It's pretty much a non-event," said Mike Willingham, executive director of the Sebring Airport Authority.

Agriculture

The fruit industry will see no significant damage from Fay, said Ray Royce on Wednesday morning. The executive director of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association said minor flooding in the groves probably wouldn't affect the trees, and that the winds only knocked off a small amount of fruit from the trees.

By Wednesday afternoon, he had seen the sod farms near State Road 70, east of U.S. 27, and there was significant flooding there. Some farms were under two or three inches of water, he estimated, and that could damage the grass.

"There's lots of water out here," said Don Bates, a county commissioner who owns caladium fields east of Lake Placid. "It's just everywhere. I'm out here near the golf course at Placid Lakes, and you'd have to have a pontoon boot to play golf today."

Some of his fields are flooded. "But overall, they're in pretty good shape," said Bates. "We probably got 6-7 inches of rain. I don't think it will affect the crop. There will be some root rot, but that's just part of farming."

Caladium tuber harvest starts in November, Bates said. If the mucky soil drains, there will be no problems. And if another hurricane passes through?

"That could be trouble," Bates said.

RAINFALL TOTALS

Station .................Inches

Sebring...................5.21

Avon Park ..............7.19

Rural Avon...............5.89

MacArthur Center.....6.05

Lake Placid.............5.50

Lorida...................6.66

Venus...................4.66

Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863 386-5828

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT