Two children walk among the damage to barns Tuesday in Wellington, Fla. Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore Tuesday short of hurricane strength but mysteriously gained speed as it headed over land, bringing heavy rain, high wind and tornadoes.

NAPLES, FLA. ? Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in southwestern Florida on Tuesday without much fanfare, but stubbornly hung around like an unwelcome houseguest, maintaining strength and threatening – once again – to become a hurricane.

The storm first hit the Florida Keys, veered out to sea and then traversed east across the state on a path that would curve it toward to the Florida-Georgia border. The failure of Fay to weaken meant a whole new swath of the state had to prepare for a worse storm, and meant Florida could wind up getting hit three separate times.

“This storm is going to be with us for a while. That’s obvious now. It looks it could be a boomerang storm,” Gov. Charlie Crist said at a news conference.

Earlier in the day, it had appeared that Fay would simply peter out and perhaps bring nothing but heavy rains to the southeastern United States. But by late Tuesday, a hurricane watch was posted for parts of north Florida and Georgia as Fay seemed to be resurrected by the flat, swampy Everglades, increasing the chances it could still end up strengthening into a hurricane.

Its top sustained winds increased for several hours during the day and peaked at 65 mph, before dropping to 50 mph late Tuesday. A hurricane has winds of at least 74 mph.

Forecasters expected the storm to get a dose of energy today when it moves over the Atlantic Ocean, where it could reach hurricane strength.

At 10 p.m. CDT, the center of the storm was about 30 miles south-southwest of Melbourne and forecasters expected it to head north-northeast at about 5 mph overnight.

Eric Blake, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center, urged people not to focus too much on whether Fay was a tropical storm or a hurricane, because either one can cause damage. Fay had fallen short of predictions that it could be a Category 1 hurricane when it came ashore in southwest Florida on Tuesday morning.

“A strong tropical storm can be very significant,” he said, pointing to wind damage in the state’s interior and the possibility of flooding from up to 15 inches expected in parts of central Florida.

Fay formed over the weekend in the Atlantic and was blamed for 14 deaths in the Caribbean before hitting Florida.

Though it flooded streets in Naples, downed trees and plunged some 95,000 homes and businesses in the dark, most Floridians thought they had dodged a bullet. The worst of the storm’s wrath appeared to be 51 homes hit by a tornado in Brevard County, southeast of Orlando. Nine of the homes were totaled, said Brevard County Emergency Operations Center spokes-man David Waters.