Adjusting to storm-delayed GOP convention

TAMPA, Fla. -- Republicans are set to descend on Florida as Mitt Romney's team works to cram four days of events into three after the threat of Tropical Storm Isaac forced the soon-to-be nominee to cut short his national convention.

Delegates will convene briefly and immediately recess until , Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said.

Isaac was about 75 miles west-southwest of Key West, Fla., with top sustained winds of 65 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an advisory at 11 p.m. . The tropical storm, which has killed eight people in Haiti and two in the Dominican Republic, was moving west-northwest at about 14 mph. Isaac was expected to become a hurricane in "a day or so" and could make landfall near Biloxi, Miss., with winds of at least 105 mph, the center said. A hurricane warning was in effect Sunday night from Morgan City, La., to Destin, Fla., as the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina neared.

The revised forecast for Isaac may have spared Tampa, but officials from states in the storm's possible path were reassessing their plans for convention attendance.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott urged convention delegates in Tampa Bay to remain in their hotels because of potential bridge closures and roads flooding. Tampa was expected to get about six inches of rain , winds of about 40 mph and storm surges of about three feet, said Bryan Koon, head of Florida Division of Emergency Management.

As his aides scramble in Tampa to finalize the convention schedule and logistics, Romney is taking a rare day off the campaign trail at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire, receiving updates on the storm and making final preparations for the Thursday speech with which he will accept his party's presidential nomination.

"The safety of those in Isaac's path is of the utmost importance," Romney tweeted.

Because of possible storm surges and the flooding Isaac could bring, convention organizers said they were making contingency plans to move delegates from beachfront hotels to other locations. They indicated the schedule shift also was meant to prevent overburdening emergency response personnel at the height of the storm.

President Barack Obama, who was at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., dispatched the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish a storm command center in Florida. Vice President Joe Biden scrapped a campaign trip there that had been meant to counter the GOP convention.