Almost a year ago, Hurricane Irma made landfall on the Florida Keys, leaving thousands of Floridians to deal with property damage, a lack of electricity and coastal flooding.  Fear of a similar situation ensued within Florida communities after Tropical Storm Gordon’s trajectory was projected towards the Florida peninsula. However, against forecasters’ predictions, Gordon barely made contact with South Florida and lashed the Florida panhandle and parts of Alabama and Mississippi with 60 miles per hour (mph) winds and rain. Residents in the southern half of Florida experienced only a more weakened version of Tropical Storm Gordon throughout Labor Day.

“Although Irma was only at a Category 2 when hitting Miami I still felt like it was difficult to overcome since many were left without power for weeks. Even driving to the store became difficult since there were so many fallen trees and electricity poles everywhere that it made it dangerous to even drive,” junior Celine Perez said.

Tropical Storm Gordon struck on the border of Mississippi and Alabama on Sept.4 with wind speeds of up to 70 miles per hour, just missing the cutoff to qualify as a category one hurricane. Almost 30,000 people in Alabama lost their power due to Gordon’s direct impact, but almost all customers as of now have had their power restored.

Southern Florida was hit by Gordon after the tropical storm’s strength had weakened to 35 mph. Despite Gordon’s weakening wind speeds, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County had a reported 4,000 FPL customers that were left without power. Almost 50 residents had their power back the same day. As for the remainder,  FPL released a statement via Twitter saying “In areas where sustained winds are greater than 35 mph, customers may experience longer outages until it is safe for crews to restore power.” As of now, FPL crews are responding safely and as quickly as possible to restore power.

” Gordon didn’t cause any significant amount of damage here but I still commend those who went through it because it’s not easy witnessing any major storm. When going through any storm, you always tend to have that unprecedented fear of not knowing what may occur,” sophomore Joah Brooks said.

In Gordon’s aftermath, there was no severe damage done to most communities; the extent was a number of damaged roofs and a substantial amount of debris on roads.

Although Gordon caused a low amount of property damage, it is credited with at least one death. When the tropical storm made landfall in Pensacola, the storm became more than just the cause of flash floods –  it took the life of a two-year-old girl when a large tree fell on her mobile home.

In the days that followed, the remnants of Gordon continued to move on the through the midwest, where residents in some areas experienced 5 inches of heavy rainfall, before eventually dissolving.

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