Collier County Emergency Manager Dan Summers is urging residents to keep tabs on the progress of Tropical Storm Isaac.
The system is expected to pass south of Puerto Rico later today. Maximum sustained winds are near 40 miles an hour and strengthening is expected.
Some forecast models indicate Isaac may fall apart when it moves over the mountain ranges on the Island of Hispaniola. But Summers says he’s not betting on that.
“If it does fall apart we’ll be lucky. Our concern is what happens as it crosses the Dominican Republic, how the storm exits when it crosses Cuba and as you know we have a lot of warm water there which can cause it to regenerate and what we don’t want to do is not get caught by surprise.”
Summers says if Isaac intensifies it could be a category 1 Hurricane as it approaches Collier County – probably Monday morning. This could result in significant storm surge, flooding from rains and potentially damaging tornadoes.