Statewide, about 20 percent of gas stations are now generator-capable, ahead of next year's deadline for most stations to have them, said Jim Smith, president of the Florida Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association. "We're out because everyone is preparing for the storm," Scarani said. Gas was also top on the list, as several southwest Miami-Dade County stations saw lines snake around the pumps.Īdrian Scarani, manager of a Marathon gas station on a busy intersection in southwest Miami-Dade County, said he doesn't usually run out of regular gasoline - but he did Monday morning. Many Florida residents rushed to stores early to gather supplies and fill medical prescriptions. "I feel like they look at us and say, 'You dummies live down there,'" he said. But he acknowledged that outsiders might wonder why he and others remain on the Keys despite the storms. James Krie, 44, a Key West resident and general contractor, stopped to make purchases for homes he was working on Monday and seemed unconcerned about the brewing storm. Some residents and business owners were installing plywood over windows and hurricane shutters as tourists struggled to get flights out of the airport. Miami-Dade also opened a shelter for residents from the Keys. Mobile home residents were also urged to evacuate. "Just because the system is not a hurricane now, doesn't mean it can't be a hurricane later," he told reporters at the hurricane center in Miami.Įrnesto would first be felt in the Keys, where visitors were ordered out and plans were enacted to evacuate special-needs residents to Miami. Senior hurricane specialist Richard Knabb said it was unclear how long the storm would remain over Cuba but urged people not to become complacent, even if the storm weakens. This time, Cubans moved cattle to higher ground, tourists were evacuated from hotels in the southeastern province of Granma and baseball games were rescheduled for earlier in the day in Havana. The government regularly undertakes mass evacuations before tropical storms and hurricanes to minimize injury and loss of life. There were no reports of damage or injury in Cuba. In Haiti, Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of the civil protection agency, said one person on Vache island off Haiti's south coast died in the storm, but she could not give details. Over the weekend, Ernesto became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season and lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was centered over Cuba, about 35 miles northwest of Guantanamo, and about 450 miles southeast from Key West. About 400 miles of the state's densely populated Atlantic coast and the Keys were under a hurricane watch in Ernesto's path.Īt 2 p.m., the fifth named storm of the hurricane season had top sustained winds of 40 mph, 1 mph above the minimum to be a tropical storm and down from 75 mph Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters said there was a 10 percent chance of hurricane-force winds striking South Florida and a 60 percent chance of tropical storm-force winds by Thursday.
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