Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Cold front sweeps in, damages high school

Wind tore holes in Gaither High in Carrollwood. Also, thousands of Tampa Electric customers lost power.

TAMPA - Monday's winds were so strong, they punched their way into a local high school. The wind kept joggers off Bayshore Boulevard and kept trucks off the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

The weather that ripped through the Tampa Bay area Monday was part of a complex storm system from the Gulf of Mexico that will usher in the last cool front of the season.

The front arrived with gusto, dumping 2 inches of rain, snapping power lines and damaging several buildings throughout west-central Florida.

Early in the morning, wind tore away large sections of concrete from the exterior walls of an auditorium at Gaither High School in Carrollwood. Concrete from the building's third story crashed through the second-story roof on an adjacent wing that houses classrooms.

"It punched some holes in the roof and blocked the drains, so water pooled in the building," said Hillsborough schools spokesman Mark Hart. The estimated damage: $80,000 to $100,000.

Falling tree branches pulled down power lines throughout the area Sunday evening and Monday, according to Progress Energy Florida of St. Petersburg and Tampa Electric Co.

Tampa Electric said it had restored power by Monday evening to about 17,000 customers in its service area, mostly around Hillsborough County.

Power was restored to 39,100 Progress Energy customers statewide, including about 10,500 in the St. Petersburg area.

But about 4,800 customers, including more than 1,900 around St. Petersburg, were still without power Monday evening.

On Tampa's Bayshore Boulevard, Jason Kirk usually jogs four times a week. But if the windy weather continues as it did Monday, he may stay on the treadmill this week.

"I can't stand (the wind); that's the only thing that keeps me on the treadmill," said Kirk, 30. "It's fine running one way, but then you're hit with 15- to 21-mile-per-hour winds going another."

Kirk, a Tampa resident for six years, said there wasn't the usual number of pedestrians along Bayshore for a Monday at 5 p.m.

"There's a lot less people. . . . The last few weeks it's been filling up to where you couldn't even find a parking spot, the weather was so gorgeous."

- Times staff writers Grace Agostin, Louis Hau and Logan Mabe contributed to this report.