The hurricane season has started in the United States. After hitting the Caribbean, Storm Elsa, once again a hurricane, was heading, Tuesday, July 6, towards the coasts of Florida. At 11 p.m. Tuesday (5 a.m. in Paris, Wednesday), Elsa was, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), just in front of Tampa Bay, accompanied “Heavy rains and gusts of wind spreading inland in southwest and west-central Florida”.
Here are the 11PM EDT July 6 Hurricane #Elsa Key Messages. For more information: https://t.co/905zOAYiId https://t.co/silIWT0t4j
Elsa, who is moving at a speed of 22 km / h towards the north, “Is expected to make landfall along the north Florida coast on Wednesday morning before advancing into the southeastern United States on Thursday”, had specified earlier the NHC. The hurricane is expected to lose power as it travels inland to ascend to Georgia and the states of South and North Carolina.
With winds blowing up to 120 km / h, the NHC decided on Tuesday evening to change its status to a category one (out of five) hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
In the northwestern part of the peninsula, the water could rise up to 1.5 meters, due to the winds. The Tampa airport has suspended commercial flights from 5 p.m. local and until 10 a.m. at least Wednesday morning.
Three dead in the Caribbean
“We are calling on the people of Florida to start their preparations, and this includes the possibility of being without electricity for a few days, and of having enough food and water for each member of their family., urged, Tuesday, Jeanette Nuñez, the deputy governor of Florida. If there are evacuation orders in your area [d’habitation], it is for your own safety, the counties will open emergency shelters. “
The passage of the tropical storm comes less than two weeks after the partial collapse of a building in Surfside, a small town north of Miami, in the middle of the night on June 24. The disaster left at least 36 dead and 109 missing, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Tuesday afternoon. The remaining part of the building, dubbed Champlain Towers South, was destroyed on Sunday evening in a controlled explosion, as authorities feared the building would threaten the safety of rescuers. These fears were compounded by the onset of the storm.
After killing three people in the Dominican Republic and Saint Lucia, Elsa hit Cuba on Monday, leaving heavy rains in its wake but without causing great damage on the island, as in Haiti, a country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters .