First Florida aware on Tuesday May 03 2011 6:08 pm.
A Florida deputy sheriff’s cruiser is in for some major repairs after a 10-foot alligator took a big bite out of the car’s bumper. Authorities say the attack happened near a country club as the deputy was waiting for a trapper to show up.
Alachua Deputy Victor Borrero spotted the gator Saturday evening near the Gainesville Golf and Country Club. It attacked the patrol car while the deputy was waiting for an alligator trapper to show up.
The alligator was put down under the state’s nuisance gator policy, and the trapper was allowed to keep alligator meat and the gator hide, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
First Florida aware on Saturday April 23 2011 7:35 pm.
Brevard County Fire Rescue responded Friday morning to a West Melbourne home where a 4-year-old boy was playing with a lighter and set a mattress on fire in a front bedroom. All belongings at the home were destroyed.
First Florida aware on Saturday April 23 2011 7:20 pm. Tags: gas prices, Orlando
Suncoast Energys, located near the Orlando International Airport, was charging $5.69 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday. That’s the highest of any gas retailer in the nation, according to price tracker gasbuddy.com.
Scientists judge the overall health of the Gulf of Mexico as nearly back to normal one year after the BP oil spill, but with glaring blemishes that restrain their optimism about nature’s resiliency. Rich Matthews explains.
Softball-size globs of oil floating in the water last year. Today the area looks free of the disturbing signs that were visible as low as 40 feet.
This spill does not seem to be the ecological disaster that some people thought it was.
There was absolutely no evidence — visual evidence — that these platforms, these reefs, these artificial platforms had ever been in the proximity of a major spill.
We look at the maps and see that the area impacted by the Macondo blowout and spill and we think boy that’s a big area. Relative to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s not. It’s a small area. And that does not mean that its impact was not significant to the people living in that area, but its not really a threat to the overall ecology and health of the Gulf of Mexico.
– Dr. Quenton Dokken, Gulf of Mexico Foundation
Dr. Paul Sammarco of Lumcon noticed that there were not any larger species of fishing swimming in the area. There were smaller fish, but he suspects the larger fish were killed off.
Powerful winds, severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes swept across Tampa Bay, Lakeland and Polk City in central Florida.
Lakeland, St. Petersburg, and Tampa law enforcement and firefighter/paramedics responded to multiple reports of small tornadoes and high winds across the central Florida region. Wind gusts of up to 70 miles per hour were reported in St. Petersburg, where skies turned dark around 11:15 a.m.
Strong storms also hit yesterday, dropping many power lines.
In Lakeland, Florida at least seven people were injured when a tent collapsed at the Sun ‘n Fun event at the Lakeland Airport. At least 70 people were inside the tent when it collapsed. One person suffered a fractured hip, but the rest of the injuries were apparently minor.
Wind gusts of up to 90 miles per hour were reported in Tampa, and emergency crews responded to a report of a commercial building collapse with no injuries.
Small planes flipped over at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport. Large traffic jams happened on a bridge when a tractor-trailer truck flipped onto two cars.
Throughout the area power was out, some trees were uprooted and some trees were snapped at the trunks.
A small private Cirrus SR22 plane heading to a nearby general aviation airport in Kissimmee, Fla., had been out of radio contact for over an hour in the skies near Orlando, Florida Sunday.
Pilots of a Southwest Boeing 737 were asked by a Florida air traffic controller supervisor to change course and take a closer look at the Cirrus plane.
The incident is especially inappropriate because the behavior of the pilot of the Cirrus private plane was unpredictable — putting passengers and crew on the Southwest jet in jeopardy. The Southwest jet had 137 passengers onboard.
The Cirrus was flying at 11,000 feet heading to a general aviation airport in Kissimmee, Florida. The Southwest Boeing 737 flew at 12,000 feet about 10 miles behind the Cirrus, while heading to Orlando International Airport.
The Florida air traffic controller supervisor was suspended after officials said he compromised the safety of passengers by letting two planes fly too close to each other.
