naples, florida daily news 2 hours ago
excerpt:
The National Hurricane Center said Bonnie came ashore Friday midday near Cutler Bay, about 20 miles south of Miami, with top sustained winds of 40 mph. It blew across Collier County around 2 p.m. with intermittent showers and occasional gusty winds. There are no reports of significant damage so far with many locals in the area going about their daily routines.
“I’m not too concerned about the storm,” said Rick Knuth, a Naples resident sitting at a busy Starbucks with his laptop. “I saw that it wasn’t too bad, grabbed my stuff and headed out to get some coffee.”
Collier County’s Bureau of Emergency Services saw the weakness of the storm and decided against pulling together its emergency operations team, such as Red Cross.
Instead, emergency responders continued to monitor the storm.
“This warranted watching but ... it wasn’t anything significant, particularly it being an exiting event,” said Director Dan Summers. “Having the opportunity to lessen in intensity a little bit over the land mass, in this particular case, really worked out to our advantage.”
Between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., Bonnie sprinkled between a quarter of an inch and a half inch of rain in Collier County, according to South Florida Water Management District. ~ read more
====
EXTERNAL LINK
