Key West, Fla. – Residents boarded up windows Monday and evacuated the low-lying Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Rita gathered strength in the Bahamas, threatening to grow into a hurricane with a potential 8-foot storm surge.
The storm’s top sustained wind speed was 70 mph by mid afternoon Monday, and it was expected to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane with winds of at least 74 mph by the time it approached the Keys early today.
“The main concern now is the Florida Keys,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “It’s moving over very warm water, and that’s extremely favorable for development.”
Hurricane warnings were posted for the Keys and Miami-Dade County, the hurricane center said. Residents and visitors were ordered to clear out of the entire chain of islands, connected by just one highway. Voluntary evacuation orders were posted for 134,000 Miami-Dade residents of coastal areas such as Miami Beach.
“This storm has some potential to it. The time to go is now,” said state emergency management director Craig Fugate.
While many Keys residents take pride in staying put during hurricanes, others said they were worried because of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Louisiana and Mississippi. Most stores on Key West’s Duval Street were boarded up Monday, and other streets were nearly empty as the sky turned cloudy.
Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851.
