Floridians are coping with rain and flooding after Tropical Storm Emily developed seemingly from nothing Sunday night.
Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for 31 counties and spoke Monday afternoon at the State Emergency Operations Center.
“The primary impact will be heavy rainfall for the next 24 hours,” Scott explained. “Two to six inches have already fallen and another two to four inches is expected today for west central and southwest Florida—isolated areas could receive up to six to eight inches.”
As of Monday afternoon roughly 18,000 Floridians had lost power.
“Everybody that has outages is working hard,” Scott said, “and so right now the lion’s share of it is as you would expect in Manatee County—there was a little over 10,000 in Manatee County. And I know Florida Power and Light has a lot of that and they’re focused on it.”
While flooding could be an issue throughout central Florida, according to the Army Corps of Engineers Lake Okeechobee has enough capacity to avoid discharges to the east and west.