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More Hurricane 2006

• FEMA relief aids in Tropical Storm Fay yard debris cleanup
• Collier seeks aid as state asks for federal disaster declaration
• Tropical storm leaves Collier with plenty of rain, no major injuries or loss of life

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On a day as gloomy as the days have been of late, it is a good idea to look on the bright side.

For those of us in Southwest Florida, Tropical Storm Alberto has a few.

First, the storm serves as the sort of wake-up call that too many people still need. It's close enough to have an effect, but too far away to do any real damage. After a year of Katrina, Rita and Wilma, you'd think the arrival of June 1 would be enough impetus to lay in hurricane supplies and update a storm plan.

But some people need that extra reminder to prepare. If you're one of them, let Alberto be that reminder.

Alberto is expected to drop several inches of rain on our region, another plus. Southwest Florida has been drier than a Steven Wright routine.

The drought index for Collier County has dropped to 341 from a high of 573 in late May. The drought index, a measure of the moisture level in the ground, is an indicator of brush fire danger. Anything over 550 is considered high risk, said Florida Division of Forestry spokesman Gerry LaCavera.

A good soaking will bring the drought index down even further.

Still, LaCavera cautions, a few days worth of rain from Alberto does not a drought end. Firefighters won't consider brush fire season over until the summer pattern of daily rains sets in, possibly by the end of this month.

Southwest Florida has been so rain-starved that even Alberto's drenching will only temporarily ease the threat of wildfires. "If we go back (to the rainless weather pattern) we'll dry this stuff out in a week," LaCavera said.

Perhaps most importantly, Alberto provides hurricane professionals with an early season dry — if anything that produces 10 inches of rain can be considered dry — run.

The state hasn't always been so fortunate. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was that year's first named storm. Floridians had never seen anything like it and hope to never see its likes again.

Emergency managers and the media they rely on to spread the word are treating Alberto as the real deal, even though it is a relatively mild storm. Gov. Jeb Bush, in the middle of a hurricane drill Monday morning, stopped what he was doing to declare a real state of emergency. "This potentially could be a hurricane, it has a potential wide impact for a lot of people in our state," Bush said.

Fox News and CNN kept Alberto near the top of their news cycles throughout the day.

Had the nation's sensitivity not been attuned to hurricane dangers last year, it's hard to imagine a tropical storm with no prospect of becoming a major hurricane garnering that sort of attention.

Now the question is, how many Albertos will it take before the nation falls back into complacency? How many tropical storms and Category 1's will come and go before people begin to lose interest?

Later today, as Alberto moves farther away, the sun may reappear in Collier County and expose the literal bright side of the storm.

The good folks in North and Central Florida may not be so lucky, but in Southwest Florida that side will be the storm's most important legacy.