Crystal River, Fla. ? The first tropical storm of the hurricane season was less than advertised Tuesday, bringing rain, gusty winds and some thigh-high street flooding to Florida’s Gulf Coast without blowing up into the hurricane forecasters feared.

There were no reports of any serious injuries or deaths.

But emergency planners said the preparations were not in vain: Alberto allowed them to hold a not-so-dry run of their disaster plans. And the rains snuffed out some of the wildfires that have bedeviled parched central Florida over the past few months.

“This is not much worse, if any worse, than a summer squall. I just hope the next time we get another one, they won’t say nothing’s going to happen because nothing happened this time,” said Jerry Cawthon, a resident of Keaton Beach.

The storm’s center came ashore around noon near Adams Beach, about 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee. Its winds were 40 mph, down from 65 mph in the morning and well below the 74 mph hurricane threshold that forecasters thought it might cross.

A manatee swims in a flooded backyard in Crystal River, Fla. The storm surge from the effects of Tropical Storm Alberto flooded low-lying areas in Citrus County on Tuesday.

If Alberto had struck as a hurricane, it would be have been an alarming start to the season, which began June 1. No hurricane has hit the United States this early in the hurricane season in 40 years.

Tampa and other areas had gotten 4 to 6 inches of rain by daybreak Tuesday, and forecasters said total rainfall could reach 10 inches in central Florida and southeastern Georgia over the next few days.

In Crystal River, water was thigh high in the heart of the town. David Garrick, owner of a restaurant and eight apartments along the bay, nervously paced the parking lot next to the apartments as water inched toward their doorsteps.

“We’re tempting fate right now, but there’s not much you can do. You can’t sandbag because it comes in under the floor,” he said.

Forecasters said the northeastern coast of Florida and the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas would be vulnerable to tornadoes for up to several days until Alberto cleared the area.

But National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said that overall, Alberto “shouldn’t be life-threatening by any means, as long as people are careful, and especially surfers.”