Wilma, and now..Alpha

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Wilma Continues to Slam Florida By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer

51 minutes ago

 

 

 

NAPLES, Fla. - Hurricane Wilma plowed into southwest Florida early Monday with

howling 125 mph winds and dashed across the state to the Miami-Fort Lauderdale

area, shattering windows, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to millions

of people. At least one death in Florida was blamed on the storm.

 

 

The same storm that brought ruin over the weekend to resort towns along Mexico's

Yucatan Coast came ashore in Florida as a strong Category 3 hurricane, but

within hours had weakened into a Category 2 with winds of 105 mph.

 

As it made its away across the state and out into the open Atlantic, it

flattened trees, tore off screens, broke water mains, littered the streets with

signs and downed power lines, and turned debris into missiles.

 

At 1 p.m. EDT, Wilma was centered about 65 miles northeast of West Palm Beach.

But the big storm was still slamming the state. Hurricane-force winds of 74 mph

or more extended up to 100 miles from the center. Wilma was moving northeast at

about 25 mph and was expected to pick up the speed.

 

" We have been huddled in the living room trying to stay away from the windows.

It got pretty violent there for a while, " said Eddie Kenny, 25, who was at his

parents' home in Plantation near Fort Lauderdale with his wife. " We have trees

down all over the place and two fences have been totally demolished, crushed,

gone. "

 

In Cuba, rescuers used scuba gear, inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles to

pull nearly 250 people from their flooded homes in Havana after Wilma sent huge

waves crashing into the capital city and swamped neighborhoods up to four blocks

inland with 3 feet of water. In Cancun, Mexico, troops and federal police moved

in to control looting at stores and shopping centers ripped open by the

hurricane, and hunger and frustration mounted among Mexicans and stranded

tourists.

 

Wilma, Florida's eighth hurricane in 15 months and the 21st storm in the busiest

Atlantic hurricane season on record, came ashore in Florida at 6:30 a.m. EDT

near Cape Romano, 22 miles south of Naples, spinning off tornadoes and bringing

a potential for up to 10 inches of rain, the National Hurricane Center said.

 

The hurricane is expected to race up the Atlantic Seaboard and reach the coast

of Canada by early Wednesday. But forecasters said it will probably stay so far

offshore that it will not even bring heavy rain to the eastern United States.

 

" Most of the impact on the U.S. will be ending in the next several hours, " Ed

Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said around midday.

 

The storm flooded large sections of Key West and other areas and knocked out

power to up to 2.5 million homes and businesses as it raced across the state and

buffeted heavily populated Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties on the

Atlantic coast with gusts over 100 mph.

 

A gust was clocked at 104 mph at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, causing

howling even in the bunker-like building.

 

In Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, Kim DuBois sat in her darkened house with her

two children and husband, with the power out and the storm shutters up. For

light they used a battery-powered pumpkin lantern they bought for Halloween.

 

" I could hear tiles coming off the roof, " she said. " There are trees on cars and

flooding at the end of our street. " She added: " Really what I'm afraid of is

tornadoes. "

 

A man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs died when a tree fell on

him, Broward County spokesman Carl Fowler said. Wilma killed at least three

people in Mexico and 13 others in Jamaica and Haiti as it made is way across the

Caribbean last week.

 

More than 33,000 people were in shelters across the state. But no mandatory

evacuations were ordered along Florida's heavily populated east coast. And in

the low-lying Florida Keys, not even 10 percent of the Keys' 78,000 hardy,

storm-tested residents evacuated, Sheriff Richard Roth said. This was the fourth

hurricane evacuation of the Keys this year.

 

About 35 percent of Key West was flooded, including the airport, said Jay Gewin,

an assistant to the island city's mayor. U.S. 1, the only highway connecting the

Keys to the mainland, was flooded.

 

Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin said the flooding was severe — " more

extensive than we've seen in the past. "

 

 

State and federal officials had trucks of ice and food ready. FEMA was prepared

to send in dozens of military helicopters and 13.2 million ready-to-eat meals.

 

Weary forecasters also monitored Tropical Depression Alpha, which became the

record-breaking 22nd named storm of the 2005 Atlantic season. Alpha, which

drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Sunday, was not considered a threat

to the United States.

 

After battering the Mexican coastline with howling winds and torrential rain,

Wilma pulled away from the Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday as a Category 2 storm and

strengthened in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Wind shear that was

expected to rob Wilma of some strength did not materialize.

 

A tornado touched down Monday in Brevard County, damaging an apartment complex.

No one was injured. Wilma's arrival also was announced by at least four

tornadoes Sunday night — including one near Kennedy Space Center at Cape

Canaveral — that damaged some businesses but caused no injuries.

 

Elaine Kelley, a 43-year-old waitress, was staying in her daughter's condo near

the water in Everglades City, a village of about 700 people on the southwest

coast. After wading through thigh-deep water to get to a nearby hotel, she said

she wouldn't make the mistake of staying through a hurricane again.

 

" I'll never go through another one, " a wet and shivering Kelley said. " I didn't

expect anything like this. I was watching roofs blow off all over the place. "

 

One serious injury was reported in Florida on Sunday: A 12-year-old girl

suffered a fractured skull in Wellington when falling hurricane shutters struck

her head, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller. She was

hospitalized in critical condition.

 

In Europe, crude oil slipped below $60 as traders expected Wilma to avoid

already battered Gulf of Mexico oil production installations.

 

___

 

Associated Press writers Allen Breed in Naples, Erik Schelzig in Marathon, David

Royse in Key West, Fla., Melissa Trujillo in Oakland Park, and Ron Word and

Brent Kallestad in Miami contributed to this story.

 

 

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain

other

sets of people are human: Aldous Huxley