Hurricane Spawns Several Tornadoes; 3 People Killed

Hurricane Earl capsized fishing boats, spun off deadly tornadoes and dumped nearly 2 feet of rain on the Florida Panhandle before weakening Thursday over Georgia. At least three people were killed and one was missing.

The hurricane came ashore near Panama City Beach with 80-mph winds but was downgraded to a tropical storm at midday, with its winds dropping to less than 50 mph.

Along the Gulf Coast, the hurricane swamped homes with an 11-foot storm surge, flattened trees and utility poles, lifted roofs off and knocked out power to tens of thousands of people in Florida and Alabama. Panama City got 23 inches of rain.

Still, most residents and state officials said they were pleased that Earl had not done worse.

“We’re hopeful,” Gov. Lawton Chiles said, adding that tourists would still find the Gulf Coast, known for miles of pristine white-sand beaches, an inviting stop for the Labor Day weekend.

About 150 people rode out the storm on Florida’s St. George Island after they ignored an evacuation order and were cut off Wednesday night when water washed over the only bridge to the mainland. The bridge reopened about midday Thursday.

Steve and Brenda Baldwin and their daughter jumped into their bathtub when they heard a tornado coming at their Citrus County mobile home about 75 miles north of Tampa. The roof tore off, leaving them protected only by a sheet of drywall.

“The trailer was off the ground when we were in the tub. I was just hoping we weren’t going to roll and we were going to live,” Steve Baldwin said.

A tornado ahead of the storm killed one person and left another missing on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The storm also spun off twisters in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

On the water, two fishing boats, the Can-Too and the Me-Too, flipped three miles off Panama City, tossing all six fishermen into 16-foot seas. Two of the men were found clinging to an overturned boat, one was rescued hanging on to debris and a fourth was found in a life raft.

The body of one fisherman washed up in Panama City Beach and a second was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico five miles away.

By early evening, the broken-up storm was centered on the Georgia-South Carolina line, with scattered power outages and street flooding reported. The remnants were expected to drift into the Atlantic by way of North Carolina or Virginia this weekend.

Up to 7 inches of rain fell across south Georgia, where damage to the state’s cotton and peanut crops was feared.

In Georgia’s Screven County near the South Carolina line, five people were injured when a tornado hit a house. One child suffered a broken arm. Twenty-seven buildings were damaged.

“There’s a little area down from me with trailers. They’re not there anymore,” said Judith Taylor of Sylvania, Ga. “Homes were lifted up and dropped back down, but they didn’t come back down in the same place.”