Collier County recommends visitors and tourists should evacuate. Authorities say the so-called voluntary, precautionary order is needed in case ‘Ernesto’ takes a more northerly path and strikes Southwest Florida. Collier County Emergency Management coordinator Jim Von Rinteln says the evacuation recommendation would give people maximum time to leave the area.

“That’s for people who don’t desire to be here during a hurricane or tropical storm event or have medical conditions that power outages could affect. Often they’re people who just have the ability to go visit friends or take a mini-vacation. This is a good time to do it if you don’t want to be around for bad weather and potentially a hurricane.”