Hurricane Katrina punishes south Florida

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) – Hurricane Katrina hammered Florida’s
crowded southeast coast with hours of buffeting winds and
whipping rains, pitching 2 million people into darkness as
power lines came down and killing two.

The storm, which was supposed to be a minimal hurricane but
nevertheless delivered a fierce punch, weakened slightly over
the swampy Everglades on Friday, but in its wake it left
flooded neighborhoods and streets carpeted with tree limbs and
leaves.

Katrina dumped up to 12 inches of rain after coming ashore
just south of Fort Lauderdale and then began a slow and
punishing trek southwest across southern Florida, said the U.S.
National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Two men were killed in Fort Lauderdale and the city of
Plantation to the west by falling trees, said Broward County
public information officer Dennis Myers. WFOR television said
the first man died when the tree brought a power line down onto
his car.

“This is going to be a long night for Miami-Dade and
Broward counties,” hurricane center director Max Mayfield told

CNN.

While Katrina was expected to weaken over land, Mayfield
warned it would restrengthen again once it emerged over warm
Gulf of Mexico waters and could loop north to slam into the
hurricane-scarred Florida Panhandle as a much more powerful
hurricane. The area was hit in July by Hurricane Dennis and
last September by Hurricane Ivan.

Florida Power and Light Co., the main electricity company
in the area, said more than 1 million customers, representing
more than 2 million people, were without power and that number
was bound to rise.

Katrina made landfall at about 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on
Thursday between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach with
sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph), the hurricane center said.
By early on Friday, as it moved west of Miami, the winds had
eased to 75 mph, the center said.

ALREADY PUNISHED

That still made it a minimal Category 1 hurricane on the
five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Such hurricanes can damage
flimsy trailer homes but rarely cause structural damage to
buildings. Emergency managers had urged people to leave
vulnerable islands and mobile home parks, but did not order
mandatory evacuations.

Punished last season by four powerful hurricanes in six
weeks, Florida residents had snapped up drinking water and
spare batteries from stores. Some filled sandbags to try to
protect their homes from flooding, but few bothered to put up
hurricane shutters.

Drivers lined up to fill their cars with gasoline before
the storm hit and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush urged South Floridians
to conserve fuel.

Schools and businesses in southeast Florida closed and
cruise lines rerouted their ships as the seaports shut down.

Party planners on Miami Beach canceled poolside bashes that
had been organized for celebrities and fans in town for the MTV
Video Music Awards. Forecasters expected the skies to clear in
time for the awards show on Sunday.

Forecasters have predicted an unusually high number of
storms this year because the Atlantic has swung into a period
of more intense storm activity.

The June-through-November Atlantic hurricane season has
seen 11 named storms, a record so early in the year.