Florida braced as Eta strengthens in Gulf to become hurricane again

Storm Eta regained strength to become a hurricane again on Wednesday morning off the west coast of Florida after earlier devastating Honduras as a category 4 that had raged across Central America leaving death and destruction in its wake.

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Central Florida is based for the category one hurricane to make landfall in the next 24 hours in the Tampa area.

The storm’s maximum sustained winds increased to around 75mph off the state’s southwest coast in the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami issued a hurricane watch for a 120-mile stretch that includes Tampa and St Petersburg. The storm has been in the Gulf since crossing over south Florida on Sunday.

Eta was about 130 miles west-southwest of Fort Myers early Wednesday and moving at 15mph.

The hurricane center said “life-threatening storm surge“ is possible early Thursday, and forecasters advised residents to heed warnings from local officials. Tropical storm-force winds are expected in the area by late Wednesday.

Forecasts call for more rain from the storm system over parts of already drenched south Florida.

“Never seen this, never, not this deep,” said Anthony Lyas, who has lived in his now-waterlogged Fort Lauderdale neighborhood since 1996. He described hearing water and debris slamming against his shuttered home overnight as the storm crossed Florida.

The storm first hit Nicaragua as a category four hurricane and killed nearly 70 people from Mexico to Panama, before moving into the Gulf of Mexico early Monday near where the Everglades meet the sea, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph.

“It was far worse than we could’ve ever imagined, and we were prepared,” said Arbie Walker, a 27-year-old student whose Fort Lauderdale apartment was filled with six inches of water.

There was nowhere for the water to go across much of south Florida, which had already experienced nearly 14in of rain in October.

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As much as 16in of rain damaged one of the state’s largest Covid-19 testing sites, at Miami-Dade county’s Hard Rock Stadium, officials said.

Throughout the pandemic, it has been among the busiest places to get a coronavirus diagnosis. The site was expected to be closed until Wednesday or Thursday.

Eta hit land late Sunday as it blew over Lower Matecumbe, in the middle of the chain of small islands that form the Florida Keys, but the heavily populated areas of Miami-Dade and Broward counties bore the brunt of the fury thus far.

It was the 28th named storm of a busy Atlantic hurricane season, tying the 2005 record for named storms, with the climate crisis driving more and fiercer tempests.

And late Monday, it was followed by the 29th storm – Theta.

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Theta broke the record of 28 named storms in 2005. Theta was centered Wednesday morning about 740 miles southwest of the Azores, bearing top sustained winds of 65mph as that system moved east-northeast at 8mph.