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While emergency managers began to prepare Saturday for Tropical Storm Fay and the governor declared a state of emergency, Southwest Florida residents weren’t all that fazed.

Collier County Emergency Management Coordinator Jim von Rinteln said emergency managers were growing concerned with what they saw Saturday afternoon.

“When the storm decides to turn we aren’t going to have a lot of time,” von Rinteln said.

At 8 p.m. Saturday, the storm’s center was about 60 miles southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, and moving west at 14 mph. Maximum sustained winds were 45 mph. To become a hurricane, sustained winds must be at least 74 mph.

Von Rinteln urged residents to prepare for a possible Category 1 hurricane hitting Collier and Lee counties early in the week. Even though it could be the lowest-category hurricane, storm surge could be a factor, he said.

“We are making sure that we get the best understanding of the storm,” von Rinteln said.

At the Naples Pier, dozens of folks shrugged it off to enjoy the sunny weather Saturday afternoon.

Among those fishing on the pier was Richard Patterson.

“It’s just a bunch of wind,” said Patterson, 46, of Golden Gate.

Jim Syoen, interactive weatherman for naplesnews.com, said Saturday evening that “it appears Fay will spend the majority of the next 36 hours over water south of Cuba, and since warm water is the fuel for a hurricane, this may not be a good thing, as the storm may have a good chance to strengthen.”

Syoen noted that the National Hurricane Center admitted it has low confidence in the intensity forecast.

“If the best hurricane experts at the NHC admit low confidence, that should make all of South Florida extra diligent to monitor the latest advisories,” Syoen said.

Forecasters predicted that the sixth named storm of the 2008 season would make landfall somewhere along western Florida on Tuesday as a hurricane, said Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist at the Hurricane Center in Miami.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declared a state of emergency because Fay “threatens the state of Florida with a major disaster,” he wrote in an executive order.

Residents and tourists in the Florida Keys prepared Saturday for Fay, which forecasters said could begin battering the island chain as soon as Monday.

Officials in the Keys’ Monroe County said they were considering whether to order an evacuation. Traffic during evacuations can back up for miles on the single highway linking the islands to Florida’s mainland.

In Lee County, preparation was the word of the day for Lee Emergency Management.

Officials spent Saturday conducting conference calls with officials from the state, National Weather Service, Hurricane Center and surrounding counties, said Terry Kelley, Emergency Management coordinator for Lee County.

“All of the agencies have a role,” Kelley said. “It’s very important that everyone knows what they’re doing.”

Saturday, Lee emergency managers were preparing a schedule, determining when evacuations would be needed and when shelters would be open.

“We hope it doesn’t hit,” Kelley said.

Also preparing for the storm heading toward Collier County was the Collier Sheriff’s Office.

Officials spent the day making sure they were ready for the storm -- checking that generators were fueled, checking on the propane tank and charging the satellite phones, said Karie Partington, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.

“We are hoping that people who live in Collier County use Sunday as the day to get ready,” Partington said.

While the agencies got ready, there was no great alarm among residents in the area.

From gas stations -- where prices remained at $3.79 to $3.91 on U.S. 41 East -- to automatic tellers, there were no lines, no impatience, no fear.

By afternoon, no one had yet arrived at Verizon Wireless on the corner of Palm Street and U.S. 41 to ask about cell phone battery replacements, customer service representative Alex Soto said.

Since that store is closed Sundays, anyone needing Verizon backup can go to the company’s stall in the Coastland Center mall.

Outside the Dollar Tree store in the Kmart shopping center at U.S. 41 and Collier Boulevard, East Naples resident Crystal Gober admitted to a little bit of regular shopping and some pre-storm planning.

“I’m buying batteries, water, plastic cups,” she said, noting that a person can’t use a dishwasher if there is no electricity. And she was buying toys -- and batteries -- for her son.

As for the boarding-up process, Gober said she would wait until Sunday morning to see what the news media reported.

Anyone scared? Not Gober’s 4-year-old son, Robert Russell Law.

“He just wants his toys to work,” Gober said.

Outside of Kmart, Heather LaRosa, a visitor from New York’s Long Island -- a region familiar with storms and hurricanes -- was heading into the store to find a pair of shorts to match her son’s Sponge Bob shoes, those rubbery beach-ready shoes.

Nor were folks rushing to get their prescriptions filled, said Mary Meyer, the pharmacist at Publix on Thomasson Drive.

While Meyer was working, and wondering about her first hurricane -- she and her husband moved to Marco Island from Wisconsin last year -- her mate was off at Home Depot finding ropes to tie down the boat, she said.

That might be the safest place to be, said lifelong Floridian Charlie Bartlett, owner of the Dollar Tree in Naples Towne Centre in East Naples.

Discussing Hurricane Donna of 1960, Bartlett said his wife’s dad took their 43-foot boat up a creek and “tied it into the mangroves.”

They rode out that storm onboard, surviving nicely, he said.

But, he worried that so many people in Southwest Florida seemed not to be taking Fay seriously, noting the lack of customers in his store or anywhere else.

“I think they’re taking (Fay) a bit lightly,” he said.

While Naples and the rest of Southwest Florida has been relatively free of serious storms, Bartlett still advises residents and visitors to go out and buy batteries, drinking water, flashlights, canned goods, bleach, “and a couple of good books to read,” Bartlett said.

He added that people might consider picking up ‘the Good Book,’” speaking of the Bible, because if Fay hits, there’s going to be a lot of people praying, he said.

By mid-Saturday afternoon, Fay was really not on most people’s minds, not even at Home Depot on Airport-Pulling Road in East Naples.

Folks were there purchasing flowers, planting dirt and normal household goods.

Assistant store manager Rebecca Walts saw a different side of the picture at other times of the day.

Folks “are taking it seriously,” Walts said. “There’s been a lot of interest in generators and we’ve sold a lot of plywood.”

While folks weren’t lining up at the gas stations along U.S. 41, she’d seen a lot of 5-gallon gas cans exiting her store, Walts said.

Just down the road at Collier Emergency Management, staff was monitoring the storm.

Officials would decide soon if any Collier County shelters would be opening.

Von Rinteln stressed that the community should be vigilant of the storm and get prepared, such as tying boats down and having an evacuation plan if they live along the coast.

“With a little luck it will turn and go to the east coast,” von Rinteln said.

*****

To review the status of Tropical Storm Fay, Collier County commissioners will hold a special meeting to determine the necessity of declaring a state of emergency. The public meeting is at 9 a.m. Monday in the boardroom on the third floor of the W. Harmon Turner Building (Administration Building F), Collier County Government Center, 3301 U.S. 41 E.

*****

Syoen will have a special edition of Interactive Weather Sunday morning on naplesnews.com to give a good look at the 5 a.m. forecast of Tropical Storm Fay.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.