MARATHON, Fla. - Florida Keys residents parked vehicles on elevated ground, anchored fishing boats in mangrove trees and boarded up homes and businesses as Tropical Storm Ernesto drenched the island chain on Tuesday.

Women fight the wind and rain from tropical storm Ernesto in Miami, Florida, August 29, 2006. [Reuters]

People in the low-lying 110-mile (177-km) archipelago off Florida's southern tip, storm weary after a series of evacuations during the last two hectic hurricane seasons, appeared to take Ernesto more seriously than they did Hurricane Wilma, which struck last Octo
ber 24. But few evacuated.

"It's not going to be that bad. If it was stronger, I would leave," said Juliana Prats, with husband Carlos Hernandez.

Tourists were ordered to leave the vulnerable islands on Sunday. Hospital emergency rooms remained open but federal and state parks, county and city offices and schools were closed.

In Key West, sandbags were stacked by the open doors of popular downtown watering hole Sloppy Joe's, one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite bars when the writer lived in the city. Few residents had ventured out downtown in late afternoon.

Wilma's powerful storm surges last year pushed a foot or more of water into 3,700 of the 15,000 residences in Key West, an island resort town of about 25,000 permanent residents who also weathered hurricanes Dennis, Rita and Katrina.

About 10,000 cars were flooded in Key West and up to 30,000 were lost throughout the Keys during Wilma.

Meteorologists predicted Ernesto had missed its chance of regaining hurricane strength.

But it could bring a storm surge of 2 feet to 4 feet (.6 to 1.2 metres) to the islands and cause some flooding on parts of the Overseas Highway, which links the islands from Key West to the mainland.

Ken Nelson, a BellSouth facility technician, worked on telephone lines in drizzling rain and said he didn't expect a loss of electricity or phone lines during Ernesto unless "a sailboat drifts into a power line," a common occurrence during Keys hurricanes.

Nelson was nonchalant about the storm. "I've lived on the Gulf Coast all of my life and this is just part of life."