The Tribune

TAMPA (AP) - Residents on Florida’s Gulf coast filled sandbags, schools closed early and graduation ceremonies were postponed as Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency with Tropical Storm Colin churning towards the state on Monday, threatening serious flooding.

A large portion of Florida’s western and Panhandle coast was already under a tropical storm warning when the National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced that a swift-moving depression had become a named storm on Sunday. The NHC said it is the earliest that a third named storm has ever formed in the Atlantic basin.

Colin’s maximum sustained winds on Monday morning had increased to near 50mph with some slow strengthening possible during the next two days. The storm was centred about 285 miles west-southwest of Tampa and moving north-northeast around 16mph.

Early on Monday, Ronald Milligan, 74, stopped by a park in St Petersburg where authorities planned to distribute sandbags because the ditch in front of his home had filled during the previous evening’s rain.

“If last night was a ‘no storm’ - and the water was almost up to the hump in my yard - I’m worried,” Mr Milligan said, motioning to about knee level. He has lived in Florida since the late 1970s and has never prepared for a storm this early.

Sandbags also were being distributed in Tampa and nearby cities.

The latest forecast has the storm expected to make landfall near the Big Bend area of Florida in mid-afternoon, move across the Florida peninsula into Georgia and then move along or just off the South Carolina coast before heading out to sea.

Schools in at least one Florida Gulf Coast county planned to dismiss students early on Monday. Pasco County said schools would be let out and it was likely that county government would shut down around noon to get people off the road by 3pm.

In addition, two high school graduations in the Tampa Bay area were postponed due to the storms, with both ceremonies being moved to Wednesday night and Thursday. Winds from Colin also closed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa. Farther north at Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, the storm’s arrival this afternoon was due at the same time as high tide, creating even higher risk of severe flooding, said Andrew Gude, manager of the refuge for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We’re taking chain saws home so we can cut our way out of our neighbourhoods and cut our way back into work tomorrow,” Mr Gude said.

Colin is expected to produce rainfall amounts of three to five inches and forecasters said up to eight inches are possible across western Florida, eastern Georgia and coastal areas of the Carolinas up to and including Tuesday.

Forecasters said storm surge and high tide could combine to flood normally dry areas along Florida’s coastline. They also described Colin as a lopsided storm, with tropical storm-force winds extending up to 185 miles east of its centre.

A tropical storm warning was also in effect for the entire Georgia coast and the lower South Carolina coast.

Meanwhile, Governor Scott postponed a political meeting with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump scheduled for Monday in New York so he could remain in the state capital to monitor the weather. He warned residents not to simply look at the centre of the storm, saying the heaviest rain will be to the east and west of it.

Colin was expected to pass the Georgia coast before dawn on Tuesday, said Dennis Jones, director of the Chatham County Emergency Management Agency. Mr Jones said flash floods appeared to pose the greatest threat, with the worst flood potential expected late on Tuesday when local waterways already swollen with rain crest with the high tide.