Tropical storm Gabrielle moves ashore in Florida

Associated Press WriterSARASOTA, Fla. (AP) -- Tropical Storm Gabrielle rushed ashore Friday on Florida's Gulf coast, spinning out tornadoes, felling trees and power lines, and threatening the rain-soaked peninsula with significant flooding.

The storm downed power lines, traffic lights and trees across the region. Florida Power & Light, the state's largest power company, reported 80,000 customers without power at 9 a.m. EDT. Schools were shut along the coast.

The storm system had meandered in the Gulf of Mexico for days before reaching tropical storm strength and getting the name Gabrielle on Thursday. The maximum sustained wind never got up to hurricane strength of 74 mph before Gabrielle, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, moved over land.

By 11 a.m., the storm was centered about 25 miles northeast of Sarasota. Its winds were at 60 mph, down from 70 mph when it first moved over land.

Tornado touchdowns were reported at a supermarket, a marina and four homes in Satellite Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral.

"Callers have reported blown transformers, downed power lines, roof damage, and tree damage in our beach communities," said a release from the Brevard County Emergency Management Office.

There were no reports of injuries.

Wind gusts of 61 mph were recorded in Everglades City in Collier County, on the western edge of Everglades National Park.

Picking up its forward speed early Friday, Gabrielle came ashore at daybreak near the town of Venice after meandering in the Gulf of Mexico for days. Accompanied by storm surges of three to five feet above normal as it hit the coast, Gabrielle was soaking the state from the middle Florida Keys to Jacksonville.

The 12-hour rainfall totals ranged from less than 1 inch in Miami to 4.23 inches at West Palm Beach. Orlando and its major theme parks got 2.44 inches. None of the parks planned to close because of the storm.

The state already had been pummeled by heavy rain -- Jacksonville got a 6.3-inch soaking -- as the storm system organized itself over the gulf.

Forecasters said Gabrielle was likely to keep moving northeastward in the Atlantic Ocean.

"If it does that ... the winds will barely scrape the coast of North Carolina, South Carolina, or even Georgia," said Laura Salvador, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

She said it was too soon to know if cities farther up the Eastern Seaboard would be affected.

A hurricane watch had been posted for 185 miles along Florida's west coast, from the Tampa area to south of Naples. Schools in six counties along that stretch closed Friday as a precaution. The threat of high winds and rain prompted the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa to move aircraft to a base in Kansas.

Heavy rain all week from the outer edges of the once disorganized storm system produced scattered pockets of standing water in several low-lying areas through much of southern and central Florida.

In southeastern Hardee County, seven houses and 14 mobile homes were evacuated Thursday morning because of flooding.

In the north Atlantic, Hurricane Erin had top sustained winds of 80 mph and was 480 miles southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland. It was expected to pass over or very near eastern Newfoundland as it loses circulation and other hurricane characteristics over increasingly colder water.

------On the Net:

National Weather Service: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mia

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov