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Hurricane Wilma hits Florida's southwest coast

Posted on: Monday, 24 October 2005, 06:51 CDT

By Laura Myers

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Hurricane Wilma crashed ashore in southern Florida on Monday and roared across the Everglades toward the densely populated Miami area after slamming Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and killing 17 people across the Caribbean.

Once the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Wilma weakened after hammering Cancun and Cozumel for three days with punishing winds and rains, destroying homes and ruining luxury hotels but revved up as it raced toward Florida, its top sustained winds strengthening to 125 mph (200 kph).

Wilma's powerful core struck the Florida mainland around Cape Romano, near the city of Naples. The sprawling storm, about 400 miles across, covered much of the peninsula and hit as a Category 3 on the five-stage scale of hurricane intensity, capable of causing significant damage.

Some of its strongest winds were felt in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the state's most populous area with about 5 million people. Forecasters said it could prove to be the strongest storm felt in Miami since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Hurricane-force gusts of at least 74 mph (118 kph) and flooding rains hit the Florida Keys where storm-weary residents largely ignored evacuation orders.

The streets of the Keys, a 110-mile (175-km) island chain no more than 16 feet above sea level at its highest point and connected to the Florida mainland by a single road, were dark and deserted as the winds and rains picked up overnight and power went out block by block.

Seawater sloshed into downtown streets in Key West and local media reported parts of the Overseas Highway were swamped in the Upper Keys.

Fatigued after having been forced to evacuate for three earlier hurricanes this season, no more than 7 percent of the Keys' 80,000 residents fled ahead of Wilma, officials said, despite fears Wilma's storm surge could wash out the highway and strand residents without power, water or telephone lines.

"The storm had meandered around so long that it lured me into a false sense of security," said Key West resident Warren Benjamin.

In southwest Florida, residents crowded restaurants and bars on Sunday evening in Naples and seemed to pay little heed to warnings the hurricane could bring a tidal surge of up to 17 feet to the area.

Before 7 a.m. (1100 GMT), Wilma's eye wall crossed the coast near Naples and the core was moving northeast at a brisk 20 mph (32 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended up to 90 miles , while tropical storm-force winds stretched out 230 miles from the center.

Wilma was expected to accelerate and shoot across the Florida Peninsula. The storm will plow through the heart of the Everglades -- Florida's famed "River of Grass" and home to endangered species like the Florida panther and tens of thousands of alligators -- and over to the state's east coast around Palm Beach County.

UNPRECEDENTED STORM SEASON

Wilma was the eighth hurricane to strike Florida in a little over 14 months, an unprecedented display of nature's fury.

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends on November 30, became the busiest since records began 150 years ago with the formation on Saturday of the 22nd named tropical cyclone, Alpha.

It also boasts three of the most intense Atlantic storms on record, with Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August and killed 1,200, Rita, which hit the Texas-Louisiana border a few weeks later, and now Wilma, the storm with the lowest barometric pressure reading ever observed in the Atlantic.

In Mexico, Wilma caused severe damage in Cancun and on the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan.

Many of the 20,000 or more tourists stranded on the "Maya Riviera" were short of food and water and becoming increasingly frustrated on Sunday as they faced a fourth night in cramped shelters with no electricity or running water.

The storm killed seven people in Mexico, fewer than many had feared. It killed 10 people in Haiti last week after spawning mudslides in the impoverished Caribbean country.

"There is huge devastation. This hurricane has provoked a tremendous impact. But Mexico has experience and it was demonstrated right from the beginning, saving lives," Mexican President Vicente Fox told Reuters in Cancun.

In Cuba, 86-mph (138-kph) wind gusts howled through the deserted streets of Havana, knocking down lampposts and smashing windows in some tall buildings. The city's 2 million inhabitants hunkered down in the dark, listening to battery-powered radios after authorities cut power to prevent electrical accidents.

Rough seas stirred up by Wilma crashed over Havana's famed Malecon sea wall after midnight, turning streets into rivers of knee-deep floodwater. About 15 blocks were under water.

Firefighters rescued residents from flooded homes near the seafront, carrying some elderly people to safety.

"We haven't seen it this bad in years," said resident Alfredo Saurez.

(Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana)

Source: REUTERS

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