Forecasters Downgrade Fay to a Tropical Depression

Tropical Storm Fay was downgraded to a tropical depression Saturday night, but cities along the Gulf Coast were still bracing for heavy rain.

Matt Finney, from Green Goods, a Fort Pierce, Fla., landscaping company, stands next to the plants he has stacked out of the flood waters, Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 in Fort Pierce, Fla. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)

(AP)

As a tropical storm, Fay set a record with four landfalls in Florida and was blamed for at least 11 deaths there and another in Georgia, emergency officials said.

Though the storm weakened as it traveled inland Saturday, with maximum sustained winds of about 35 mph, cities from Pensacola to storm-wary New Orleans were still preparing for possible flooding.

"People automatically assume that if it weakens, the hazards go down with it, but in the case of rainfall, it's not a function of wind speed," said Jamie Rhome of the National Hurricane Center. "Slow moving systems dump a lot of rainfall."

At 11 p.m. EDT, the tropical depression was 60 miles northeast of Mobile, Ala., and moving west at 8 mph.

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The forecast indicates the depression could slow in the next few days and possibly stall over southern Mississippi or eastern Louisiana, Rhome said.

Thousands of homes and businesses in Florida were inundated with flood waters this week as the storm worked its way north from its first landfall in the Florida Keys and zigzagged across the peninsula.

Fay's center made its fourth landfall early Saturday about 15 miles north-northeast of Apalachicola, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Rains and strong wind gusts blitzed Tallahassee, the state capital, for more than 24 hours, knocking down trees and power lines and cutting electricity to more than 12,000 customers, city officials said.

In southwest Georgia, officials said a boy drowned Saturday while playing in a drainage ditch swollen by 10 to 12 inches of rain.

The storm was expected to move over southern Alabama and Mississippi on Sunday.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Mobile, Ala., closed numerous ports and waterways between Panama City in Florida and the Alabama coast to the east.

Emergency officials in low-lying cities in the storm's path weren't taking any chances.