State of emergency declared in Florida

Well at least, the State of emergency is not being declared 5-7 days to late, you can tell it is a Bush state if not anything else can't you.Would have been good if they had given half as much thought to New Orleans 1 years ago and maybe 1500 souls would still be alive and they would not still be finding bodies under the rubble 1 year later.

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer
25 minutes ago

TAVERNIER, Fla. - Visitors were ordered to leave the Florida Keys on Sunday and Gov. Jeb Bush issued a state of emergency because of the possibility that Hurricane Ernesto could threaten the state.

Bush's order came after the Monroe County Emergency Management office told tourists to postpone any immediate plans to travel to the Keys and ordered those already in the island chain to leave.

All travel trailers and recreational vehicles were ordered off the islands immediately.

The state of emergency directed counties to activate their emergency management offices and activated the National Guard, among other things. Bush also canceled a scheduled trip to New York for meetings Monday, choosing instead to stay in Tallahassee and monitor storm developments.

Monroe County authorities planned to begin moving special needs patients to a shelter Monday morning.

Ernesto, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, was lashing Haiti on Sunday with heavy rain and sustained wind of 75 mph.

The storm was expected to move over Cuba, then bring rain and wind to southern Florida by early Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said. It was projected to strengthen off western Florida on Wednesday but the location of any U.S. landfall was unclear.

Tourists like Jim Rogers, of Lodi, N.J., made preparations Sunday to leave the low-lying Keys, which are connected to each other by just one highway, U.S. 1. Traffic leaving the Keys on the single evacuation route was steady but not heavy Sunday afternoon.

Rogers was part of a group of eight staying on Key Largo who had planned to stay in the Keys until Thursday or Friday. Rogers said the group now might go to Naples, but they were not going home.

"You don't know where to go. You don't know where it's going to blow," he said. "You don't want to be in Key West."

Key West International Airport was expected to remain open until at least Monday night.

A tropical storm or hurricane watch was possible for sections of the Keys by Monday morning, meteorologists said as the hurricane center urged residents of southern Florida, the Florida Keys and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to monitor the storm.

"It's on a track toward the Florida peninsula early this week, and all of Florida is in the area that's being threatened, from the Keys all the way up to the Panhandle," said Michael Brennan, a meteorologist at the hurricane center in Miami.

Florida's emergency management center in Tallahassee was partially activated Sunday, and several counties around the state planned to activate their own centers on some level Monday.

Florida has been hit by eight hurricanes in the past two years.

"The message to Floridians is that Ernesto bears watching," said Mike Stone, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
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Associated Press Writer Phil Davis in Tampa contributed to this report.

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