Tropical Storm Ruins Holiday for Gulf Coast Tourists : Weather: Damage in Florida is relatively light; no deaths are reported. As Alberto pushes inland, Georgia, Alabama brace for heavy rains.

Tropical Storm Alberto crashed into what should have been a perfect holiday weekend along the Gulf Coast on Sunday, lashing oceanfront highways with high winds and sand after scattering thousands of tourists to their homes or inland shelters.

Ironically, those who abandoned their Fourth of July weekend plans and fled the beaches of Florida’s Panhandle may have only run into the worst of the weather. Heavy rains of up to 10 inches, along with a chance of tornadoes and flash-flooding, were forecast overnight for southern Alabama and much of Georgia as the remnants of the first tropical storm of the season pushed northeast.

Particularly heavy rainfall was expected later in the week in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Among events at risk today was Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race, an annual Independence Day extravaganza that is expected to draw about 50,000 runners and thousands more spectators for a 6.2-mile jaunt. Race planners said only lightning would delay the 7:30 a.m. start.

Alberto’s top sustained winds of 60 m.p.h. caused relatively little property damage, and no deaths were reported as the ill-defined eye of the storm made landfall about 10 a.m. Sunday in the Ft. Walton Beach-Destin area of Florida’s coast.

Winds toppled signs, ripped down awnings and left tree branches strewn on area roads. A five-mile stretch of U.S. 98, the only road along the barrier islands that front what is a booming northern Florida resort area, was closed for two hours Sunday morning when a seawall began to crumble.

The major damage, however, was to the area’s tourist industry.

“We were 100% filled yesterday,” Kelly Barnes, a reservation agent at the 450-room Ramada Inn, said Sunday afternoon, even as skies were clearing. “But we’re down to 50% now.”

Joe Farley, general manager of the Destin Holiday Inn, predicted losses of $50,000 after guests fled about 100 of his hotel’s 233 rooms.

“Some people are coming back, and those who were courageous enough to stick it out with us enjoyed the uniqueness of the situation,” he said. “We had no damage, and the biggest problem now is that our beaches are no longer as beautiful as they were. The high water left seaweed and debris.

“But we dodged a bullet. And if we get some sunny weather tomorrow, we’re going to survive economically.”

Added Barnes, a recent arrival from Texas experiencing her first tropical storm: “It was kind of exciting, even though the winds were not as strong as predicted. . . .”

In Panama City, Fla., damage was reported to the city’s long oceanfront pier, and power lines were downed by falling tree limbs. Apalachicola, Fla., reported a seven-foot rise in the tide within one hour.

Although most of Florida saw nothing of Alberto’s high winds, the entire state was battered throughout Sunday by thunderstorms and rain, much of it the outflow of the storm system.

Over land, Alberto’s power waned quickly and when sustained winds dropped below 39 m.p.h. Sunday afternoon, the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression.

Naomi Surgi, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said thousands of people along the Gulf Coast obeyed warnings to move away from the beach in advance of the storm’s approach. “In some ways, this was a good reminder to people that even though it’s a holiday, hurricane season has begun,” she said. “People vacationing anywhere on the coastline need to be well aware of that.”

What grew into the first named storm of the 1994 hurricane season began as an area of low pressure spotted south of Cuba on Friday. By Saturday forecasters said the low began to gather strength into a tropical storm--with minimum winds of 39 m.p.h.--and quickly headed toward hurricane-strength of 74 m.p.h. as it spun northward over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

But while Alberto never reached hurricane strength, its potential, as well as its march toward the popular white-sand beach towns along the Gulf Coast, made it a serious holiday disruption.

Early Sunday, the storm-warning area extended from Gulfport, Miss., to Cedar Key, Fla., and hundreds of vacationers were evacuated along that 400-mile target area.

Some went home Saturday, while other tourists and some local residents without secure housing spent the night in emergency shelters opened in schools and churches. About 1,200 people were reported in shelters in Destin alone.

While sunny skies are forecast for the Gulf Coast today, rain and thunderstorms may complicate picnics and fireworks displays planned in northern Georgia.

Times researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this story.