Tropical Storm Fay’s Four Landfalls in Florida Sets Record

Tropical Storm Fay made a record four landfalls on the northern Gulf Coast last month, drenching and damaging communities, crops, homes and businesses across the Florida peninsula.

Gov. Charlie Crist received a major disaster declaration from President Bush. The federal declaration made funds available for emergency work and repairs to governments in Brevard, Monroe, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties.

Though Fay never became a hurricane, its downpours left 6 to 12 inches of rain in places and proved both punishing and deadly.

At least 11 people in Florida died from the storm, and nearly 30 overall since it first struck in the Caribbean, officials said. One of the storm-related fatalities was an electrical worker in Gadsden County who was responding to a power outage when he was killed.

“The damage from Fay is a reminder that a tropical storm does not have to reach a hurricane level to be dangerous and cause significant damage,” said Gov. Crist, who toured flooded communities.

Fay caused widespread flooding along Florida’s east coast, especially in Jacksonville near the storm’s third landfall. Some areas of Duval County reported up to 20 inches of rain, and authorities reported an unknown number of homes and businesses flooded.

Rains and strong wind gusts blitzed Tallahassee, the state capital, for more than 24 hours, felling trees and power lines and cutting electricity to more than 12,000 customers.

Insurance Claims

Right after Fay first hit, insurers’ claims operations sprung into action. Within a week, Florida residents had reported 11,275 claims, according state insurance department.

State-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. said it had received 2,262 homeowners’ claims, including 871 in South Florida. State Farm Florida Insurance Co. had 4,649, Universal Property and Casualty has 1,115, and USAA has 1,348, according to OIR spokesman Ed Domansky.

“It’s too early to determine whether or not the claims are high or low. Companies as well as state and federal agencies are still out in the field assessing the damage and the full magnitude of the storm,” Domansky said on Aug. 25.

The state activated its emergency claims adjuster application in response to Fay.

Fay had been an unusual storm since it was named Aug. 15. After hitting the Keys on Monday, Aug. 18, it crossed open water again before hitting a second time near Naples on the southwest coast. It limped across the state, popped back out into the Atlantic Ocean and struck again near Flagler Beach on the central eastern coast. It was the first storm in almost 50 years to make three landfalls in the state as a tropical storm. Its fourth landfall as such was the first in recorded history.

Unprecedented Nature

“This is unprecedented in terms of the slow nature of this storm, the large circulation and the fact that it’s impacted probably about 90 percent of the state with heavy rains and severe weather,” state meteorologist Ben Nelson said.

Fay was eventually downgraded to a tropical depression right after making its record fourth landfall in Florida. Its remnants dumped several inches of rain across Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Louisiana and Tennessee — some areas that have been suffering drought conditions.

“People automatically assume that if it weakens, the hazards go down with it, but in the case of rainfall, it’s not a function of wind speed,” said Jamie Rhome of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Slow-moving systems dump a lot of rainfall.”

The U.S. Coast Guard in Mobile closed numerous ports and waterways between Panama City in Florida and the Alabama coast. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley declared a state of emergency and officials opened shelters in the coastal counties. In New Orleans, officials handed out sandbags. Sandbags were also distributed in Ocean Springs, Gulfport and Biloxi on the Mississippi coast.

The federal emergency funding went first to emergency operations but will likely be extended to individual homeowners whose properties were damaged. Mary Blakeney, spokeswoman for the emergency management office in Okeechobee County, said officials needed time to decide about individual homeowner assistance.

“Those calls have been coming in … and, at this point, we have some teams coming in that will be doing a more detailed assessment where they will be going into these homes and looking at what type of damage they’ve had,” Blakeney said.

Associated Press writers Bill Kaczor and Brent Kallestad in Tallahassee, Melissa Nelson in Pensacola, Sarah Larimer in Miami, Russ Bynum in Savannah and Alan Sayre in New Orleans contributed to this story.