Tropical Storm Fay began wrapping up its disastrous slog across Florida on Saturday by making a record fourth landfall on the northern Gulf Coast. Emergency officials said 11 people have been killed in the state alone, according to AP. Across the Florida peninsula, communities began cleaning up the damage from several inches of rain that flooded homes, destroyed crops and prompted Gov. Charlie Crist to ask for a major disaster declaration from the federal government. Fay's center made landfall around 1 a.m. EDT about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north-northeast of Apalachicola along the Panhandle, a stretch of land on the Gulf Coast bordering Georgia and Alabama to the north, according to the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center. Fay was expected to finally leave the state on Saturday and reach the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday. Though Fay never became a hurricane, downpours along its zigzagging path have been punishing and deadly. The storm has killed 11 people in the state, officials said. The identities of all the victims and the causes of their deaths weren't immediately released, but at least three were killed Friday in weather-related traffic accidents and two drowned in heavy surf. Officials said the 11th storm-related fatalilty was an electrical worker who was responding to a power outage when he was killed. Another man died from carbon monoxide poisoning while testing power generators before the storm hit. At least 23 people were killed last week in Haiti and the Dominican Republic by flooding from Fay. «The damage from Fay is a reminder that a tropical storm does not have to reach a hurricane level to be dangerous and cause significant damage,» said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who toured flooded communities this week.
