NOAA
Not yet a hurricane, Tropical Storm Isaac has already delivered shock waves from the Caribbean to Florida, postponing terror trial hearings in Cuba and posing a potential threat to next week's GOP convention in Tampa.
Isaac's path remains uncertain, but some computer models show the storm slicing its way up Florida's peninsula. Others send it farther west, into the Gulf of Mexico.
Officials are taking the threat seriously.
Gov. Rick Scott will talk about Florida's preparations for the storm at a media briefing Thursday morning at the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said his city is prepared for the 50,000 people headed to his city for the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.
The latest forecast map from the National Hurricane Center in Miami shows Isaac passing near the Florida Keys early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and northwest of Tampa by Monday evening.
"We have contingency plan after contingency plan," Buckhorn said. "We are ready in the event that it happens. I don't think it's going to be a factor in this particular convention. But we are prepared in the event that it is."
Convention spokesman Kyle Downey said the situation is being monitored "very closely."
Possibly complicating matters, the convention site -- The Tampa Bay Times Forum -- is mandatory evacuation zone once storms reach 96 mph or a Category 2 hurricane, according to the Hillsborough County Hurricane Guide. The current forecast doesn't have Isaac reaching that status.
At the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials canceled the pretrial arguments scheduled to get under way in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others.
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