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Long lines plague Wilma-ravaged Florida

Posted on: Wednesday, 26 October 2005, 14:26 CDT

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - Floridians lined up for gas, water, ice and money on Wednesday, and power crews worked to restore electricity to 5.5 million people as the state's most-populous region slowly recovered from Hurricane Wilma.

Lights reappeared in many of the office towers in downtown Miami and the city recalled employees to work, despite having no power at City Hall. But for many of the 5 million people in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area, life was still a tedious wait for basics.

Trucks convoys moved through the stricken region, carrying workers who righted power poles, hacked up fallen trees and replaced downed lines.

Wilma killed five people in Florida on Monday and one in the Bahamas after a damaging trek through the Caribbean, where 17 people died in Haiti and Mexico.

Risk analysts have estimated Wilma's damage in Florida at up to $10 billion, which would rank it among the top-10 most-expensive storms to hit the United States.

A line stretching for hundreds of yards formed at a downtown Miami service station that had gas on Tuesday but was closed on Wednesday.

Similar lines formed at a handful of gas stations, ATMs, grocery stores and shops that showed any signs of opening. Federal relief agencies distributed ice and water at centers throughout the region.

South Florida had plenty of fuel, but little electricity to pump it from the ground.

Florida Power & Light, the local power company, said it could take three weeks or more to restore power to everyone.

"We have 2.7 million customers without power this morning," a company spokeswoman said. One customer is usually considered to represent two people.

The remnants of Wilma faded over the Atlantic Ocean after lashing the U.S. northeast on Tuesday.

The 2005 Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season has been a record-breaker, with 22 tropical storms or hurricanes, besting the old record of 21 set in 1933.

This year was also marked by the most intense Atlantic storms ever recorded, including Hurricane Katrina, which in August burst the levees protecting New Orleans and flooded the city. Katrina caused more than $30 billion in damage, probably the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Two days after Wilma struck, south Florida was slowly putting itself back together. Miami International and Palm Beach International airports were open and garbage trucks moved through the streets picking up trash and storm debris,

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was closed to major commercial traffic, but some small planes were landing, a spokeswoman said. Most local governments and courts were still closed.

Residents and engineers wondered at the damage Wilma's 100-mph (160-kph) winds did to windows in some of south Florida's glass towers -- even those built after building codes were strengthened after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

A school board headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and hotels and banks in Miami's Brickell banking district were among the buildings whose windows were extensively damaged and showered glass on surrounding streets.

Herb Saffir, a Coral Gables structural engineer who helped develop the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, told The Miami Herald he was "dumbfounded" by the window damage.

"Even if it had been the pre-Andrew code, I think those windows should have stayed in place," Saffir told the newspaper.

(Additional reporting by Michael Peltier in Tallahassee, Laura Myers in Key West, Michael Christie and Jane Sutton in Miami and John Marquis in the Bahamas)

Source: REUTERS

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