Florida got a wet and rapid reminder that hurricane season has arrived.
Alachua County may have avoided the worst with Tropical Storm Andrea the week of June 3, but experts believe the storm brought important safety issues and preparation awareness to the surface, said Kenneth Allen, UF Emergency Manager.
“The destructive nature of these weather events is very hard to predict,” said University Police Spokesman Maj. Brad Barber. “You could have flooding. You could have tornado activity that incurs a spin-off on these things. You could have a lot of other events that unfold.”
Thursday on campus, two tree limbs dropped on cars. Barber said one of the trees was at Black Hall and the other was in the back area of the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Both incidents involved large branches that snapped and broke off.
Barber said incidents like those are the reason why UPD considers weather conditions like Thursday’s not ideal for traveling.
Officials look for “sustained tropical force winds” when considering altering and suspending normal campus schedules, Allen said.
He worked with the National Weather Service and others on Thursday to see if the campus would experience 40 mph winds or stronger. Because that wasn’t the case, most university activities and operations remained on a normal schedule.
Several trees were down by Friday morning, but Allen said that could happen any time Gainesville experiences heavy rain due to the amount of trees in the area. Alachua County experienced no widespread damage or reported tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.
Tyler Fleming, a general forecaster for National Weather Service in the Tampa Bay area, said this was a low-wind tropical storm, so Gainesville didn’t experience much from it.
Tropical Storm Andrea impacted several regions before it left Florida. The highest storm surge was when the center of the storm came into Dixie County along the big bend. The Tampa Bay area encountered four tornadoes between Clearwater and Venice. Tampa Bay also incurred the highest winds at 60 mph.
The most tornadoes and flooding in the state, Fleming said, were probably in South Florida.
“Imagine a much stronger Category 1, Category 3 or a Category 5 coming up in that same area and going over Gainesville,” he said. “You’re going to have a much different impact. Much stronger winds can be destroying a lot of buildings and causing flooding.”
The most important thing to learn from Tropical Storm Andrea is that it is crucial people take precautions because weather storms are unpredictable, he said.
“It’s always an opportunity to walk through our plan and know the general process of what it would be,” Allen said. “Especially at the University of Florida, where new students keep coming in so they may not have gone through a similar situation. It’s an opportunity to see how the university will communicate with everybody during the storm.”
