Florida spared the worst of Elsa, now a tropical storm

Tropical Storm Elsa continued dumping rain and bringing heavy winds in Florida Wednesday morning. However, it appears the sunshine state was spared the worst of what the storm could have brought.

At a Wednesday morning news conference, Gov. Ron DeSantis said no major structural damage or deaths from the storm had been reported.

Elsa briefly reached hurricane status in the Gulf of Mexico, but downgraded ahead of landfall.

Tornado warnings were issued in several northern Florida counties, including the Gainesville area, on Wednesday morning. Some flooding is also expected in the region, where the ground is already wet from heavy rain late last week.

“Clearly, this could have been worse,” the Gov. DeSantis said, adding that many storm-related deaths come after the system passes. “Be very careful when you’re working to clear debris,” he said.

In that same news conference, DeSantis said there were up to 26,000 customers without power in the region, most of them in the counties that surround Tampa Bay. DeSantis said no hospitals reported an outage, which has been a major problem in past storms.

“We’re fortunate to see minimal damage & flooding this morning, but it’s important to keep safety top of mind,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor tweeted. “Be aware of your surroundings & don’t drive through flood waters.”

The Tampa Bay metropolitan area — while wet and windy — appears to have emerged mostly unscathed. Tampa is no longer under a hurricane warning. However, weather forecasters warned of tropical storm conditions, including strong winds and flash flooding.

Schools and government offices in the Tampa area were closed and most public events postponed as Elsa approached Tuesday. Castor predicted Wednesday night’s Stanley Cup finals game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens would be played as scheduled.

After suspending operations at 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Tampa International Airport resumed flights Wednesday morning following a check for any storm damage, according to its website.