Beaches in Florida were largely empty ahead of Memorial Day as the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Subtropical Storm Alberto, approached the northern Gulf Coast carrying brisk winds and heavy rain.
In this Saturday, May 26, 2018, photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, Hannibal and Emily Baldwin pose for a wedding photo under an umbrella outside the Casa Marina Resort in Key West, Fla. The Tampa, Fla., couple had planned an outdoor wedding, but the evening ceremony and reception were moved inside due to rain bands emanating from Subtropical Storm Alberto. (Bob Care/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
The storm disrupted long holiday weekend plans from Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle to Miami Beach on Florida's southeastern edge. Lifeguards posted red flags along the white sands of Pensacola Beach, where swimming and wading were banned amid high surf and dangerous conditions.
It also triggered mandatory evacuations of some small, sparsely populated Gulf Coast barrier islands in one Florida county. The Florida Division of Emergency Management said in a statement Sunday that a mandatory evacuation has been issued in Franklin County for all barrier islands there and those in the county living directly on the coast in mobile homes or in recreation vehicle parks.
Alberto got an early jump on the 2018 hurricane season, which doesn't officially start until June 1. The storm prompted Florida, Alabama and Mississippi to launch emergency preparations over the weekend amid expectations Alberto would reach land sometime Monday. Rough conditions were expected to roil the seas off the eastern and northern Gulf Coast region through Tuesday.
"These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions," the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in a statement.
Gusty showers were to begin lashing parts of Florida on Sunday, and authorities were warning of the possibility of flash flooding.
At 5 p.m. EDT Sunday, Alberto was centered about 165 miles (265 kilometers) west of Tampa and had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph). Forecasters said Alberto has most recently taken a north-northwest track that would bring it over the northern Gulf of Mexico during the night and make landfall on or in the vicinity of the Florida Panhandle on Monday.
A subtropical storm like Alberto has a less defined and cooler center than a tropical storm, and its strongest winds are found farther from its center. Subtropical storms can develop into tropical storms, which in turn can strengthen into hurricanes. Forecasters cautioned that heavy rain and tropical storm conditions could reach the northern Gulf Coast well ahead of the center of Alberto making landfall.
Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center in Miami discontinued all storm surge warnings for most of the state's peninsula.
Mark Bowen, the Bay County Emergency management director, said at a Sunday afternoon news conference that the concern isn't with storm surge due to the timing of landfall and the tides. He said Alberto's biggest threat will be its heavy rains, with forecasts of anywhere from four to 12 inches (10-30 centimeters) of rain in some areas.
In Taylor County, there were voluntary evacuations for those in coastal zones and beach communities, mobile homes, RV parks and low-lying areas. In Gulf County, T. H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park began evacuations Sunday morning.
A fisherman casts his line from the storm wall along Pascagoula Bay in Pascagoula, Miss., Sunday, May 27, 2018. Area residents along the Mississippi Gulf Coast were under a number of weather advisories, as Subtropical Storm Alberto slowly makes its way through the Gulf of Mexico. However, all expired as Alberto is continuing on a more easterly path. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
In Miami, organizers called off the sea portion of the Miami Beach Air & Sea Show on Sunday because of heavy rain and rough waters. And in the Tampa Bay area on the central Gulf Coast, cities offered sandbags for homeowners worried about floods. Live video from webcams posted in Clearwater and Destin showed half-empty beaches, and whitecaps roiled the normally placid Gulf waters.
The hurricane center said Sunday that a tropical storm warning was in effect from Bonita Beach, Florida, to the Mississippi-Alabama border.
In Gulf Shores, Alabama, webcams showed beaches starting to fill up as the storm's track shifted slightly east away from the region, but red flags on the beach warned beachgoers to stay out of the rough water. Grant Brown, the city's public information officer, said they had already finished a number of preparations such as clearing culverts to prepare for big rains but Sunday had turned into a "really nice day."
With conditions expected to worsen overnight, officials are encouraging people planning to check out Monday to give themselves extra time.
Jeffrey Medlin, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service's Mobile office, warned that even after the storm moves north there will still be swells coming up from the south that could cause dangerous rip currents. Just because it's "nice and sunny" after the storm passes, Medlin said, there's still a risk for swimmers.
"People have drowned by going out to the water too soon," he said.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed Donald Trump for Florida's upcoming abortion ban and other restrictions across the country that have imperiled access to care for pregnant women, arguing Trump has created a “healthcare crisis for women all over this country.”
Biden's campaign events at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa placed the president in the epicenter of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state’s six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. Biden said that millions of women are facing “pain and cruelty."
“But it’s not inevitable. We can stop it. When you vote, we can stop it," he said.
The president is seeking to capitalize on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points.
On Tuesday, he chronicled increasing medical concerns for women in the two years since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections.
“There was one person who was responsible for this nightmare," Biden said. “And he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it — Donald Trump.”
Biden said Trump, who has publicly waffled on his abortion views, and of late has said abortion is a matter for states to decide, is concerned voters will now hold him accountable.
“Folks, the bad news for Trump is that we are going to hold him accountable,” Biden said.
At the same time, advocates on the ground say support for abortion access cuts across parties. They're intent on making the issue as nonpartisan as possible as they work to scrounge up at least 60% support from voters for the ballot initiative.
That could mean in some cases, Florida voters would split their tickets, backing GOP candidates while supporting the abortion measure.
“I think that normal people are aware that a candidate campaign is really different than a ballot initiative,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which gathered signatures to put the abortion question before voters. “You can vote for your preferred candidate of any political party and still not agree with them on every single issue."
Brenzel continued, “This gives voters an opportunity to have their message heard on one policy platform.”
On the same day the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure could go before voters, it also upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban. That subsequently cleared the way for the new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women know they are pregnant, to go into effect next week.
Organizers of the abortion ballot measure say they collected nearly 1.5 million signatures to put the issue before voters, although the state stopped counting at just under a million. Roughly 891,500 signatures were required. Of the total number of signatures, about 35% were from either registered Republican voters or those not affiliated with a party, organizers said.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, said if the abortion ballot initiative becomes branded as a partisan effort, “it just makes it more challenging to reach 60%.” Eskamani, who worked at Planned Parenthood before running for political office, said she is encouraging the Biden administration to focus broadly on the impact of a six-week ban and let the ballot measure speak for itself.
“At the end of the day, the ballot initiative is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign that stands very strongly on its own,” Eskamani said.
Trump's campaign did not respond to a question on whether the former president, a Florida voter, would oppose or support the ballot measure. In an NBC interview last September, Trump called Florida’s six-week ban “terrible.” But he has repeatedly highlighted the three conservative-leaning justices he chose for the high court who cleared the way to overturn Roe.
Republicans were dismissive of the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to use abortion as a political cudgel, arguing that other issues will matter more with voters in November.
“Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.
Still, Trump and other Republicans are aware that voter backlash against increasing restrictions could be a serious liability this fall.
Abortion-rights supporters have won every time the issue has been put before voters, including in solidly conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Last month, a Democrat in a suburban state House district in Alabama flipped the seat from Republican control by campaigning on abortion rights, weeks after in vitro fertilization services had been paused in the state.
Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Florida will be a competitive state on the presidential level “because of the extremism that has come out of Florida.” No Democrat has won the state on the presidential level since 2012, but state party officials have found some glimmers of political change in vastly smaller races, such as the open Jacksonville mayor’s race last May that saw a Democrat win in what was once a solidly Republican city.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference before the visit that the abortion amendment was written in a way to deliberately mislead voters, an argument that the state Supreme Court disagreed with when it approved the ballot language.
“All I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs," he said.
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters cheer as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
People listen as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Men 4 Choice" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried makes a selfie photo with attendees waiting to hear President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting in the White House, Jan. 22, 2024, in Washington. Biden is traveling to Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, April 23, just days before the state's six-week abortion ban goes into effect, to make his case against abortion restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Flip Florida Blue" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
