What was billed as "The Tempest" turned out to be "Much Ado About Nothing."</p><p>The Keys slowly awoke Tuesday from what could have been a major disaster but instead turned out to be just your run-of-the-mill tropical storm ( see photos in our online gallery ).</p><p>"We were very lucky," said Monroe County Sheriff Rick Roth.</p><p>That's an understatement, considering Hurricane Ike threatened the Keys as a powerful Category 4 storm Friday. But Ike went against early tracking projections and instead of striking the Middle Keys -- causing a dozen feet or more of storm surge, which the National Hurricane Center initially forecast -- it instead slammed Cuba.</p><p>In the Keys, wind gusts of 50 to 55 mph were the primary effect from Ike, along with scattered rainfall, although winds of 74 mph blew Tuesday at Sand Key Light off Key West.</p><p>Among the incidents:</p><p>-- Sporadic minor flooding in Key West.</p><p>-- A small tornado near mile marker 106 in Key Largo Tuesday morning.</p><p>-- An overturned tractor-trailer at mile marker 72 in Islamorada Tuesday morning.</p><p>-- A minor auto accident on State Road 4A on Little Torch Key Tuesday morning.</p><p>-- Brief power outages in Key West Tuesday morning and afternoon, and in Marathon Tuesday afternoon.</p><p>-- Some trees down here and there.</p><p>The lack of serious damage, many residents say, shows they didn't need to leave as ordered. But others watched Ike carefully, fully aware of the punch it could have brought.</p><p>"I rode the storm out actually in the park. I slept through the entire thing," Marathon liveaboard boater Rocky Santoro said. "It woke me up probably at 5 a.m. and then I went back to sleep and woke up at about 9. There's a couple of places there where there's no wind."</p><p>Courtney Mattison owns a small business on Duval Street in Key West.</p><p>"Evacuations are a tough call. It was a big storm. It was definitely more serious than Gustav or Fay," she said.</p><p>Key West City Commissioner Bill Verge said, "We don't make the decision. We just follow orders. The point is, it takes time for an evacuation. If there's a 50-50 chance, which 50 are you gonna take? The good 50 or the bad 50? I run the Mohawk, I got no business. It's something we've got to constantly think about."</p><p>Like Santoro, Sean McGuire lives aboard a boat in Boot Key Harbor. He said he has no qualms about staying on his 50-foot boat, but it's the dingy ride to get there that's problematic. That's why he spent Monday night sleeping in his truck.</p><p>No more than 15 percent of the residents evacuated Sunday as ordered, County Administrator Roman Gastesi said. However, the Keys' designated shelter at Florida International University in Miami-Dade County held more than 400 evacuees Monday night.</p><p>Tropical storm-force winds still blew late Tuesday but the big hazards had passed. Still, the Sheriff's Office was sending out reminders to stay at home and off the roads.</p><p>"There is still the possibility of downed power lines," Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin said. "You don't need to be driving around to do looky-lu stuff."</p><p>High tides late Tuesday and early Wednesday were expected to bring additional storm surge to the Keys from Ike.</p><p>"It's the surge plus the normal high tide," said Bill South from the National Weather Service station in Key West.</p><p>Early-morning high tides Tuesday brought water onto streets on the south side of Key West, including Duval, Whitehead and South Roosevelt Boulevard. Water also reached U.S. 1 at Sea Oats Beach in Islamorada at mile marker 75.</p><p>Tides 2 to 3 feet above normal would be expected to occur at high tides Tuesday night and this morning.</p><p>As the winds blew, the Florida National Guard deployed members of its 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group to Key West, where they visited mobile home parks and marinas to gather information on how people were doing.</p><p>They also catalogued grid coordinates of areas where disaster response teams might be needed.</p><p>Another Special Forces team was up in Key Largo just in case.</p><p>David Ball, Alyson Crean, Sean Kinney, Ryan McCarthy, Margaret Menge and Kevin Wadlow contributed to this report.