Wilma Leaves Battered Florida, Strengthens

NAPLES, Fla. -- Hurricane Wilma left a wide, messy swath of damage Monday as it sped across Florida with winds of more than 100 mph, shattering skyscraper windows, peeling off roofs and knocking out power to more than 6 million people from Key West to Daytona Beach.

The eighth hurricane to strike Florida in 15 months made landfall around 6:30 a.m. EDT Monday near Cape Romano, an uninhabited island south of Naples in Collier County on Florida's southwest coast. Wilma moved northeast at 25 mph, and devastating winds reached Florida's east coast by midmorning.

State and local officials blamed at least six deaths on Wilma and insured damages were estimated in the billions.

Now that it's back out over water, Wilma has regained strength and is moving northeast at an estimated speed of 38 mph -- a speed that is expected to increase with time.

The National Hurricane Center said Wilma is back up to a Category 3, with sustained 120 mph winds, and is expected to race up the Atlantic Seaboard and reach the coast of Canada by early Wednesday. Forecasters said that it should stay largely offshore along most of the East Coast, but will absorb Tropical Depression Alpha and collide with another weather system heading toward Massachusetts from the west.

Together, the storms will form a powerful nor'easter similar to the January blizzard that dumped more than 3 feet of snow on parts of eastern Massachusetts.

The National Weather Service has issued a high wind warning for the Massachusetts coast, saying Wilma will bring sustained winds of 40 mph, with gusts up to 65.

The strongest winds are expected early Tuesday along the southeastern coast, including Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

A coastal flood watch is in effect and 2-4 inches of rain are expected.

At 11 p.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Wilma was near latitude 31.6 north, longitude 74.3 west, or about 260 miles south of Cape Hatteras, N.C.

President George W. Bush promised swift action. He signed a disaster declaration for hurricane-damaged areas and was briefed on the situation by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, acting FEMA director David Paulison and Bush's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush.

"We have prepositioned food, medicine, communications equipment, urban search-and-rescue teams," the president said. "We will work closely with local and state authorities to respond to this hurricane."

Storm-Savvy Floridians Assess Damage

Some south Florida residents are having to step through high waters and shattered glass left in Wilma's wake.

In Fort Lauderdale and downtown Miami, broken windows from skyscrapers litter some streets and sidewalks. A broken water main in Miami's financial district also caused some trouble, spraying water 15 feet into the air, and leaving some blocks with up to 6 inches of water.

A hospital in south-central Florida was heavily damaged. A spokesman said patients had to be evacuated to other facilities.

Significant damage was reported throughout the southern half of the state. Roofs were ripped off, mobile homes destroyed, and downed trees and power lines are cluttering the ground.

One of those falling trees killed a man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs. Officials don't yet have any details on the death.

The Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach airports have all been shut down by the storm.

One man who rode out the storm in Fort Lauderdale said "it got pretty violent there for a while." He said there are "trees down all over the place."

The storm caused heavy damage over the weekend to resort towns along Mexico's Yucatan Coast. In Cancun, troops and federal police are trying to control looting at stores and shopping centers. Mexicans and stranded tourists are dealing with hunger and frustration.

Wilma also brought huge waves to Havana, Cuba, where neighborhoods up to four blocks inland have as much as 3 feet of water.

Wilma's powerful winds began lashing southwest Florida early Monday morning. Instead of getting weaker as first expected, Wilma got stronger while nearing Florida.

Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 105 miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 260 miles.

Storm surge should decrease Monday night along the coastlines of southern Florida, including Lake Okeechobee, and the Florida Keys.

Florida Keys Cut Off

Wilma has left the Florida Keys cut off from the rest of the world. The only highway connecting the islands to the mainland -- and each other -- is flooded.

Key West's mayor said, "Thank God it's moving fast and it'll go over us quick." An assistant to the mayor said 35 percent of the city is flooded, including the airport.

One Key West resident said that in a span of 45 minutes, the water in the street went from 6 inches to 4-5 feet deep. His new Porsche Boxster was submerged to its roof.

As one man put it, "All the streets are rivers."

Power has also been knocked out to the entire island chain.

Some residents said, in retrospect, they should have evacuated when they had the chance. Others said they're glad they stayed.

Most residents of the Keys refused to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Wilma. The county sheriff said that's disappointing, but residents said weather people have cried wolf too many times before.

One woman said, "They seem to over-exaggerate everything."

Monroe County emergency management director Billy Wagner said it appeared only about 20 percent of the 78,000 residents of the Keys left.

Last year, Charley killed 10 people and caused an estimated $15 billion in damage in southwest Florida. Some houses and businesses are still boarded up, while others have just finished rebuilding.

FEMA 'Ready To Go' Once Winds Die Down

With Hurricane Wilma pounding Florida, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said his personnel are "ready to go."

David Paulison said relief efforts will start as soon as soon as the worst of the storm passes. He said FEMA personnel are in shelters waiting for the winds to die down.

More than 22,600 people are in shelters across the state.

As 3,100 National Guard soldiers stand by, 425 tractor-trailers filled with ice and water are ready to be deployed. Truckloads of tarps and ready-to-eat meals are being assembled.

Tourists To Be Evacuated From Cancun

Mexico's president has announced plans to start evacuating about 30,000 tourists from resort areas that were heavily damaged by Hurricane Wilma.

President Vicente Fox said officials want tourists from across the Yucatan Peninsula bused out, starting Monday.

Fox also voiced fears that it could take months for Mexico's coastal tourist industry to recover from the storm.

The popular string of Caribbean hotels produce almost half of Mexico's $11 billion in annual tourism revenue.

An official with the Cancun Hotels Association said it could take until next spring for the area to fully recover. She said all of the group's 110 hotels suffered some damage.

Mexican troops and federal police moved into Cancun om Monday to control looting after the hurricane.

Sunday, reporters saw hundreds of people emptying whole blocks of merchandise downtown from stores, some of which had been ripped open by the storm. The looters hid when soldiers appeared, then returned to haul away clothing, appliances and anything else they could find.

Police fired in the air to scare away looters, and some crowds responded by throwing rocks and chucks of concrete. The owner of a shoe store emptied by looters says "The hurricane was ugly; the people were worse."

Monday, the floodwaters had largely receded from the streets and people started to clean up.

Wilma's Waves Rock Havana

The after-effects of Hurricane Wilma continued Monday to plague Cuba, where huge waves churned up by the storm flooded Havana's coastal highway and surrounding neighborhoods.

Rescuers have been using inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles to rescue nearly 250 people from aging, crumbling residences.

Flooding and high winds whipped up by Wilma heavily damaged homes in the coastal community of Baracoa east of Havana. And in the Port of Mariel, huge waves caused part of a concrete seawall to crumble.

One Mariel resident was heard shouting to a neighbor to "come on over, everyone's catching fish at my front door."

More than 625,000 people were ordered by the government to evacuate their homes, particularly in the western part of the island.

Alpha Hits Haiti, Dominican Republic

Authorities in Haiti say Tropical Storm Alpha killed at least eight people there before moving north into the Atlantic and weakening.

More than 20 other people are missing in Haiti, and at least three more are missing in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Alpha dumped heavy rains on ground that was already saturated from Hurricane Wilma and other recent storms.

Rivers overflowed their banks, washing away at least 23 homes in a suburb of Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince.

The rains closed the city's airport and have turned main streets into muddy streams. Cars and buses are slowly moving through brown, axle-deep water on the main road to the south of the city.

Heavy rain is reported throughout the Dominican Republic and authorities ordered the evacuation of some 30,000 people from areas prone to flooding. Moderate flooding is reported in several low-lying communities in the southern Dominican Republic.

Over the weekend, Alpha became the record-breaking 22nd named storm of the 2005 Atlantic season. It was the first time a letter from the Greek alphabet was used because the list of storm names had been used up.

At 5 p.m. EDT, satellite imagery indicated that Tropical Depression Alpha has weakened to a trough near latitude 29.0 north, longitude 70.0 west, or about 385 miles southwest of Bermuda.

The remnants of the depression are moving toward the north-northeast near 29 mph. This general motion should continue for the next 12 to 24 hours, until the system is absorbed by Hurricane Wilma.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph, with higher gusts to the east of the trough.