1 dead as storms sweep in

A man in Ruskin is killed by lightning as thunderstorms whipped through the area, bringing up to a foot of rain.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 16, 2000

[Times photo: Mike Pease] A sport utility vehicle plows through standing water on Linebaugh Avenue in Tampa's Westchase suburb on Saturday.

With little warning, a chain of thunderstorms churned out of the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, taking one life and causing flooding, traffic accidents and power outages.

Authorities said a man by a lake in Ruskin, in southern Hillsborough County, was killed by a lightning bolt.

Sheriff's deputies summoned to 606 19th Ave. NW about 8:30 p.m. found the body. The man appeared to have been struck by lightning and probably was killed instantly, said Sgt. Rod Reder, a sheriff's spokesman.

No identification of the man was immediately available Saturday night.

All along the Suncoast, the storms pumped out flooding rains, lightning and winds, including a tornado.

Parts of the region received more rain Saturday than they did the first half of this year. Hardest hit were Pinellas and Manatee counties, although the North Suncoast received heavy rain as well. Clearwater had its worst flooding in years.

The region's most extensive flooding was on Anna Maria Island, off the Manatee County coast at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Floodwaters crept into about 50 homes after nearly a foot of rain fell, and the main bridge to the island, State Road 64, was closed for five hours, authorities said.

Veteran weather watchers said Saturday's deluge was the kind that happens only once or twice a year in west-Central Florida.

"It's atypical but not unprecedented," said David Rittenberry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "Every summer I've been here -- 22 summers -- there's at least one or two days with this type of pattern."

When Rittenberry finished his shift at midnight Friday, there was no sign of foul weather. "There was nothing on the radar, absolutely nothing," he said.

About 6 a.m. Saturday, a storm formed about 30 miles off the Pinellas shoreline. It spawned a series of storms that swept east and south across the region.

"It just exploded. You didn't see it coming," Rittenberry said. "These thunderstorm complexes can feed on themselves. Their own energy generates renewed development around them."

The result was iron-gray skies, knee-deep water and near-darkness in the afternoon.

Most of Pinellas County got 4 to 5 inches of rain, while counties to the north and east got 1 to 3 inches.

Clearwater was inundated by about 6 inches of rain, most of it coming just after 3 p.m.

"We had so much rain fall in such a short time," said Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor. "This is the most extensive flooding I've seen in years."

On downtown thoroughfares, several cars drove into deep water and flooded out. A drainage ditch overran its banks, turning the southern end of Clearwater Country Club into a several-acre lake.

Clearwater had more flooding west of U.S. 19. On Arcturas Avenue, a woman and her granddaughter were sucked into a storm drain and were rescued by a man using speaker wire, police said. Neighbors reported flooded houses on South Duncan Avenue.

At a recently opened Home Depot at 2495 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd., the parking lot flooded.

"Ten minutes after I got there, my car was half underwater," said Donna Horn of Dunedin. "They announced on the PA, "You better check your cars.' "

Florida Power said 11,000 customers in Pinellas and southern Pasco counties had no power Saturday evening. Crews rushed to repair scattered outages.

Blinding rain led to auto accidents.

About 9:30 a.m., a northbound Honda hydroplaned on Interstate 275 just north of the 54th Avenue exit and swerved into a St. Petersburg Fire Rescue truck, said District Fire Chief Roger Lane. The truck flipped over into 3 feet of water in the median of Interstate 275. A paramedic and emergency medical technician crawled out.

Neither the Honda's driver nor the two men in the truck were seriously hurt.

"If they had gone off the opposite side of the road, they would have been in 7 or 8 feet of water in a ditch," Lane said.

In Pasco County, a tornado came out of the clouds Saturday morning and touched down near the Moon Lake Volunteer Fire Department. It surprised a dozen firefighters who were standing outside, taking a break from a training seminar.

"There was an eerie calmness in the air," said firefighter Erin Walker, adding that the tornado was about a mile wide at the top. No one was hurt, and no damage was reported.

In Hernando County, lightning hit a Chevron gas station in Spring Hill, causing electrical damage to some coolers. And a Spring Hill man was taken to Oak Hill Hospital for shock and a headache after lightning struck a lamppost near him.

Despite the deluge, the Tampa Bay area isn't cured of its water shortage, said Robyn Hanke, a spokeswoman for the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

"It seems like it's so much rain that it must be helping," she said. "But really, one rainfall is not going to take us out of the drought."

Only about 10 percent of this rain will make it to the region's aquifer and have a lasting impact on the area's water supply, Hanke said.

-- Times staff writers Linda Gibson, Sharon Tubbs, Tamara Lush and Jamie Malernee contributed to this report.

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