Tropical Storm Elsa carved a destructive and soaking path up the East Coast after killing at least one person in Florida and spinning up a tornado at a Georgia Navy base that flipped recreational vehicles upside-down and blew one of them into a lake. Elsa’s winds strengthened Thursday to 50 mph (85 kph), as the storm dropped heavy rains on parts of North Carolina and Virginia, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an update. Elsa was passing over the eastern mid-Atlantic states on Thursday night and was expected to move near or over the northeastern United States on Friday. No significant change in strength is expected through Friday, and Elsa is forecast to become a post-topical cyclone by Friday night, the center said. Read:Tropical storm kills 1 in Florida, hurts 10 at Georgia base Tropical storm warnings were in effect along the coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts. There was a chance Long Island in New York would see sustained tropical storm-force winds late Thursday night and into Friday morning, the National Weather Service in New York warned. The National Weather Service in Morehead City, North Carolina, tweeted that a tornado was spotted near Fairfield on Thursday afternoon. A tornado warning had been issued for Hyde County and surrounding counties. Elsa seemed to spare Florida from significant damage, though it still threatened flooding downpours and caused several tornado warnings. Authorities in Jacksonville, Florida, said one person was killed Wednesday when a tree fell and struck two cars. A spokesperson for the Naval Air Force Atlantic Office said Thursday that a sailor assigned to Patrol and Reconnaissance Squadron 16 in Jacksonville was killed. Forecasters reported 50 mph (80 kph) wind gusts in the city. The tree fell during heavy rains, according to Capt. Eric Prosswimmer of the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department. Nine people were injured Wednesday evening in coastal Camden County, Georgia, when a tornado struck a campground for active-duty service members and military retirees at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Eight of those hurt were taken to hospitals, base spokesperson Chris Tucker said. Some have since been released and others were kept for observation, he said. Read:Elsa weakens to a tropical storm as it takes aim at Florida The EF-2 tornado flipped over multiple RVs, throwing one of the overturned vehicles about 200 feet (61 meters) into a lake, the National Weather Service said in a preliminary report early Thursday after its employees surveyed the damage. Tucker said about a dozen recreational vehicles at the campground were damaged. Some buildings were also damaged on the base, which is the East Coast hub for the Navy’s fleet of submarines armed with nuclear missiles. Tucker said there was no damage to submarines or any other “military assets.” Sergio Rodriguez, who lives near the RV park, said he raced to the scene fearing friends staying at the park might be hurt. “There were just RVs flipped over on their sides, pickup trucks flipped over, a couple of trailers had been shifted and a couple of trailers were in the water” of a pond on the site, Rodriguez said in a phone interview. In South Carolina, a Coast Guard Air Station Savannah crew rescued a family that became stranded on Otter Island on Wednesday after their boat drifted off the beach due to Elsa. A man, his wife and daughter, and three cousins were hoisted into a helicopter and taken to Charleston Executive Airport in good health Wednesday night, the Coast Guard said in a news release. The hurricane center said rainfall totals between 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) were expected through Friday for eastern Mid-Atlantic states and into New England. Isolated totals up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) were possible. There was a risk of “considerable” flash and urban flooding. Read:Officials: Storm lashing Florida strengthens into hurricane More than 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain was recorded at a weather station near Gainesville, Florida, the weather service reported. Scattered power outages were being reported along Elsa’s path Thursday night, with about 45,000 homes and businesses without electricity from Virginia to Massachusetts, according to the website poweroutages.us. Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

Elsa weakened to a tropical storm as it threatened Florida’s northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday after raking past the Tampa Bay region with gusty winds and heavy rain. Gov. Ron DeSantis said forecasts called for the cyclone to come ashore sometime between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. A hurricane warning was in effect for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River. Read:Officials: Storm lashing Florida strengthens into hurricane “We ask that you please take it seriously,” the Republican governor told reporters Tuesday in Tallahassee. “This is not a time to joyride because we do have hazardous conditions out there.” There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the Tampa Bay area, which is highly vulnerable to storm surge. The most powerful winds were forecast to remain just offshore from the beach towns west of St. Petersburg. Elsa’s maximum sustained winds stood at 70 mph (115 kph) early Wednesday. Its core was about 60 miles (95 kilometers) southwest of Tampa. It was moving north at 14 mph (22 kmh), according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecasters said Elsa would slice across inland north Florida as a tropical storm with strong rains and wind, then move on to Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia before heading out in the Atlantic Ocean by Friday. Schools and government offices in the Tampa area were closed and most public events postponed as Elsa approached Tuesday. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, however, predicted hockey’s Stanley Cup finals game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens would be played as scheduled Wednesday night. “We’re fairly confident,” she said. Tampa International Airport suspended operations at 5 p.m. Tuesday and planned to resume flights at 10 a.m. Wednesday following a check for any storm damage, according to its website. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa moving across west Cuba, then to Florida Duke Energy, the main electric utility in the Tampa Bay area, said in a statement it had about 3,000 employees, contractors, tree specialists and support personnel ready to respond to power outages in the storm’s aftermath. Additional crews were being brought in from other states served by Duke. “We’re trained and prepared, and we want to ensure our customers are safe and prepared for any impacts from the storm,” said Todd Fountain, the utility’s Florida storm director. Earlier Tuesday, Elsa swept past the Florida Keys but spared the low-lying island chain a direct hit. Still, there were heavy rains predicted in the Keys through Wednesday, along with strong winds. The storm also complicated the search for potential survivors and victims in the collapse of a Miami-area condominium on June 24. Despite that challenge, crews continued the search in the rubble of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, on the state’s southeast coast. In Georgia, a tropical storm warning was posted along the portion of the coast of Brunswick, with the National Hurricane Center saying tropical storm conditions with sustained winds of up to 50 mph (80 kph) are expected in parts of southeast Georgia. “Right now, we’re basically looking at a cloudy, rainy and windy day,” Glynn County Emergency Management Agency Director Alec Eaton told the Brunswick News on Tuesday. “I feel confident we can sit down and let it pass over us without any major impacts. Hopefully.” To the north in South Carolina, emergency officials were watching Elsa, but no evacuations were ordered during the peak summer beach tourism season. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba amid fears of flooding The storm was expected to track inland, but coastal forecasters noted the worst weather was on the east side of the storm and could dump up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain and bring wind gusts up to 55 mph (88 kph) in places like Hilton Head Island, Charleston and Myrtle Beach. Earlier, Cuban officials evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

The search for victims of the collapse of a Miami-area high-rise condominium reached its 14th day on Wednesday, with the death toll at three dozen, more than 100 people still unaccounted for and authorities sounding more and more grim. Crews on Tuesday dug through pulverized concrete where the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside once stood, filling buckets that were passed down a line to be emptied and then returned. The up-close look at the search, compliments of video released by the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department, came as eight more deaths were announced — the most for a single day since the search began. It also came as rain and wind from Tropical Storm Elsa disrupted the effort, though the storm was on track to make landfall far across the state. Read:Searchers at collapse site ‘not seeing anything positive’ Searchers have found no new signs of survivors, and although authorities said their mission was still geared toward finding people alive, they sounded increasingly somber. “Right now, we’re in search and rescue mode,” the county’s police director, Freddy Ramirez, said at a news conference Tuesday evening. He soon added: “Our primary goal right now is to bring closure to the families.” No one has been rescued from the site since the first hours after the building collapsed on June 24 when many of its residents were asleep. Searchers were still looking for any open spaces within the mounds of rubble where additional survivors might be found, said the county’s fire chief, Alan Cominsky. “Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything positive,” he said. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 28, 117 still missing Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the families of the missing were preparing for news of “tragic loss.” She said President Joe Biden, who visited the area last week, called Tuesday to offer his continued support. “I think everybody will be ready when it’s time to move to the next phase,” she said. Reporters got their closest in-person look at the site Tuesday, though it was limited to the portion of the building that workers tore down Sunday after the initial collapse left it standing but dangerously unstable. A pile of shattered concrete and twisted steel stood about 30 feet (9 meters) high and spanned roughly half the length of a football field. A pair of backhoes pulled rubble off the pile, which blocked any view of the search effort. Severe weather from Elsa hindered search efforts to a degree. Lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. And winds of 20 mph (32 kph), with stronger gusts, hampered efforts to move heavy debris with cranes, officials said. Read:Search back on after rest of South Florida condo demolished However, the storm’s heaviest winds and rain would bypass Surfside and neighboring Miami as Elsa weakened along its path to an expected landfall somewhere between Tampa Bay and Florida’s Big Bend. Crews have removed 124 tons (112 metric tonnes) of debris from the site, Cominsky said. The debris was being sorted and stored in a warehouse as potential evidence in the investigation into why the building collapsed, officials said. Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the unstable remaining portion of the building was demolished.

A storm that has lashed the Caribbean and the Florida Keys with pounding rain and gusty winds and complicated the search for survivors in a deadly condominium collapse has strengthened into a hurricane. The National Weather Service said Tuesday that Hurricane Elsa was packing winds as high as 75 mph (121 kph) as it hurtled toward Florida’s northern Gulf Coast. The Category 1 storm is expected to make landfall between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, somewhere between the Tampa Bay area and the Big Bend region. In addition to damaging winds and heavy rains, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges, flooding and isolated tornadoes. A hurricane warning has been issued for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River in Florida’s Big Bend area. Landfall was expected somewhere in between. The Tampa area is highly vulnerable to storm surge because the offshore waters and Tampa Bay are quite shallow, experts say. Gov. Ron DeSantis said the area would take a hard hit from the storm overnight. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa moving across west Cuba, then to Florida Now is “not a time to joyride” because “we do have hazardous conditions out there,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday. The storm is expected to make landfall between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, he said. Still, on the barrier island beach towns along the Gulf Coast, it was largely business as usual with few shutters or plywood boards going up early Tuesday. Free sandbags were being handed out at several locations, and a limited number of storm shelters opened Tuesday morning in at least four counties around the Tampa Bay area, although no evacuations have been ordered. Nancy Brindley, 85, who lives in a seaside house built in 1923, said she has experienced 34 previous tropical cyclones and is not having shutters put on her windows. Her main concern is what will happen to sand on the adjacent beach and the dunes that protect her house and others. She’s staying through the storm. “The main concern here is, if it doesn’t speed up and decides to stall, there will be enormous erosion,” she said. Friends Chris Wirtz, 47, and Brendan Peregrine, 44, were staying put at a beachfront inn with their families. Both are from Tampa, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) across the bay and have been through storms many times. “Before we left, we knew it was coming,” Wirtz said. Others were taking no chances. Annie Jones, 51, has lived along the Gulf Coast her entire life. She was buying ice and food at a local grocery store in advance of the storm. “I’ve seen this happen over the years and I decided to load up,” Jones said. Read:Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba amid fears of flooding Across the Tampa Bay region that’s home to about 3.5 million people, events, government offices and schools were closing down early Tuesday in advance of the storm. Tampa International Airport shut down at 5 p.m. Duke Energy, the main electric utility in the Tampa Bay area, said in a statement it has about 3,000 employees, contractors, tree specialists and support personnel ready to respond to power outages in the storm’s aftermath. Additional crews are being brought in from other states served by Duke Energy. “We’re trained and prepared, and we want to ensure our customers are safe and prepared for any impacts from the storm,” said Todd Fountain, the utility’s Florida storm director. The fifth game of the Stanley Cup finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens, set for Wednesday night, will take place, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said. The Lightning lead the NHL’s championship series 3-1 and could clinch the title with a victory. Bands of rain reached Surfside on Florida’s Atlantic coast, soaking the rubble of the Champlain Towers South, which collapsed June 24, killing at least 36 people. Search and rescue crews have worked through rain in search of more than 100 others unaccounted for, although lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, officials said. Its core was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tampa. It was continuing to move to the north at 14 mph (about 23 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center. DeSantis expanded a state of emergency to cover 33 counties. After Florida, forecasters predicted Elsa would hit coastal Georgia and South Carolina, portions of which were under a tropical storm warning. Read:Hurricane Elsa races toward Haiti amid fears of landslides Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp issued a state of emergency Tuesday affecting 92 counties in middle, south and southeast Georgia in preparation for the storm. Elsa’s westward shift spared the lower Florida Keys a direct hit, but the islands were still getting plenty of rain and wind Tuesday. Cuban officials evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

Hurricane Elsa raced toward Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday, where it threatened to unleash flooding and landslides before taking aim at Cuba and Florida. The Category 1 storm was located about 395 miles (635 kilometers) east-southeast of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic and was moving west-northwest at 29 mph (46 kph). It had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph), with the hurricane expected to become a tropical storm after hitting Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The long-term forecast track showed it heading toward Florida as a tropical storm by Tuesday morning, but some models would carry it into the Gulf or up the Atlantic Coast. Also read: Biden doubling spending to prepare for hurricanes, storms In Haiti, authorities used social media to alert people about the hurricane and urged them to evacuate if they lived near water or mountain flanks. “The whole country is threatened by this hurricane,” the Civil Protection Agency said in a statement. “Make every effort to escape before it’s too late.” Haiti is especially vulnerable to floods and landslides because of widespread erosion and deforestation. Also read: Indonesia landslides death toll rises to 126, dozens missing A hurricane warning was issued for for Jamaica and from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to Punta Palenque in the Dominican Republic. A hurricane watch was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Granma, Guantanamo, Holguin, Las Tunas, and Santiago de Cuba. Some of those provinces have reported a high number of COVID-19 infections, raising concerns that the storm could force large groups of people to seek shelter together. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, authorities opened more than 2,400 shelters as forecasters warned of heavy rains starting Saturday before dawn. Also read: Haiti fights large COVID-19 spike as it awaits vaccines Elsa is forecast to brush past the southernmost point of Hispaniola by early Saturday afternoon and then take aim at communities in southern Haiti. The storm already ripped off roofs, destroyed crops and downed trees and power lines in the eastern Caribbean on Friday, with damage reported in Barbados, St. Lucia and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which are struggling to recover from massive volcanic eruptions that began in April. Elsa is the first hurricane of the Atlantic season and the earliest fifth-named storm on record. It is forecast to drop 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain with maximum totals of 15 inches (38 centimeters) across portions of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica.