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Date Posted: 12:29:26 10/24/05 Mon
Author: Barry
Subject: Hurricane Keeps Up Strength as It Tears Through Florida
In reply to: Barry 's message, "Hurricane Wilma" on 12:09:21 10/21/05 Fri

NAPLES, Fla., Oct. 24 - Hurricane Wilma lashed the southwest coast of Florida with 125-mile an hour winds today, causing heavy flooding and power outages as it ripped through the Florida peninsula, leaving downed power lines and other destruction in its wake.

At least one death in Florida was blamed on the storm, The Associated Press reported.

By this afternoon, the winds had slowed, modestly, to about 105 miles per hour, leading Wilma to be downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 2 storm about two-and-a-half hours after it made landfall. By 1 p.m., the storm was about 65 miles northeast of West Palm Beach, moving northeast at 25 miles per hour. "Some continued weakening is likely as Wilma crosses the southern Florida peninsula today," the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory earlier. "On this track, the center will emerge off the east coast of the southern Florida peninsula and move into the Atlantic later today."

Residents and tourists in Fort Myers Beach, on Florida's Gulf Coast, awakened to the full force of Hurricane Wilma this morning after a sleepless night of anticipation for many of them.

Hours before daybreak, Wilma's winds began tormenting Estero and San Carlos Islands, just off Fort Myers, from the south and west. Once Wilma's back eyewall crossed the islands, winds lashed from the north and west, the worst winds of Wilma's passage.

Palm trees bent; their fronds looked like they were on a 100 mile an hour ride in a convertible. Roof tiles flew in the air. The streets, covered with water, looked like the bay.

At about 9:30 in the morning, when the torrent of wind and rain and calmed down somewhat, people ventured out. They looked like extras in a dawn-of-the-dead movie as they walked through the destruction from the storm. They saw palm trees snapped like twigs or uprooted, and debris everywhere.

On Estero Island, which fronts the Gulf of Mexico, roads were littered with roofing, aluminum, trees and yard waste. Some roads were impassable. A gas station was mostly destroyed.

On Estero Island's north end, one resident, Brian Tansey, helped another homeowner, Gene Smith, clean up.

"To me it's fortunate that the tide was very low," Mr. Tansey said. "The only damage was where the soffit ripped off and water came in the second floor."

Mr. Smith's house fronts Estero Bay, which separates Estero Island from San Carlos Island.

"It's very surprising that we had so little damage," said Mr. Smith, who rode out the storm in the home he's owned for 11 years.

In Cuba, large portions of Havana were underwater today after Wilma caused a storm surge that topped sea walls. Rescuers used scuba gear, inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles to pull nearly 250 people from their flooded homes, The Associated Press reported. Some neighborhoods were under three feet of water.

This morning the hurricane's winds extended up to 100 miles from its eye wall, toppling power lines and trees and bringing fierce horizontal rain and high seas through a large swath of coastal south Florida - from the Florida Keys and Naples on the West to Miami and Ft. Lauderdale on the state's Atlantic Coast. In Miami, winds were tracked at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour this morning. Gusts reached 121 miles per hour in Naples, a city of 90,000. Tropical force winds extended up to 260 miles from the center, according to the hurricane center.

"Hurricane force winds on the back side of he eye are moving into metro areas of southeastern Florida," the hurricane center said in an advisory on its web site. It cautioned residents, "Remain indoors."

About 2.5 million people across the state are without electrical power. Gov. Jeb Bush requested this morning that 14 Florida counties be granted a major disaster declaration. He said the Florida National Guard had been deployed to conduct any necessary rescue operations.

"Conditions outside continue to be dangerous and they will continue to be so, even after the hurricane has passed," Gov. Bush told a morning news conference.

In Washington, President Bush said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was poised to respond with food, water and medicine. The president also said urban search and rescue teams were on alert.

The hurricane is Florida's eighth in the past 15 months. Wilma, which made landfall at 6:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time at Cape Romano, was moving this morning at 20-miles per hour, the hurricane center said on its web site. Cape Romano is about 22 miles south of Naples.

Fred Coyle, chairman of the Collier County Board of Commissioners, said he was particularly concerned about Everglades City, a town of about 700 located 36 miles south of Naples that he said was "very vulnerable to strong surges" from the Gulf of Mexico. Collier County includes Naples and is one of the nation's fastest-growing regions with about 300,000 residents,

Copeland, a village of about 100 people 35 miles east of Naples, was cut off by flood waters and fallen trees.

In Naples, streets were under two to three feet of water, but there appeared to be little damage.

"We did not see a lot of physical damage to any structures," said Mr. Coyle. "The worst thing out there is the debris" from fallen trees.

Further south in the Florida Keys, an estimated 80 percent of the 78,000 residents ignored a mandatory evacuation order and shuttered themselves inside their homes. Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin told CNN that flooding was the worst he had seen in recent years, but that it was too early to tell the extent of structural damage. He said the area's airport was among the area's flooded. The only highway connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland had also been flooded.

An area from Key West north to Naples was largely without power, water or emergency services. A storm surge of 12 to 18 feet is expected in areas of southwest Florida, with a surge of five to nine feet expected in the Florida Keys.

"We did everything possible to help people leave and if they made the decision to stay, it was theirs," said Mr. Mauldin.

Statewide, about 15,000 people are staying in more than 70 emergency shelters, according to the Red Cross.

Tornadoes were reported Sunday night on the Atlantic Coast north of Lake Okeechobee and near Melbourne and Cocoa Beach.

Governor Bush said on Sunday that gasoline remained abundant along evacuation routes and that much more, at least 220 million gallons, was waiting at the state's ports.

An additional 131 million gallons are scheduled to arrive on 29 ships over the next few days, said Mr. Bush, whose state experienced such serious gas shortages during last year's hurricanes that many drivers were stranded along highways. On an average day, Floridians consume about 23 million gallons of fuel.

About 2,400 Florida National Guard troops were activated for duties including traffic management and search-and-recovery efforts, Mr. Bush said. An additional 3,000 troops are on standby.

Mr. Bush said search-and-recovery teams, with hovercraft, boats and nearly three dozen Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters, were ready to enter the Keys if roads were impassable. Officials in Collier County put teams with airboats and swamp buggies at several staging areas.

More than 200 truckloads of ice, 200 truckloads of water and 86,000 meals were waiting in Jacksonville and at Homestead Air Force Base, south of Miami. And nearly 7,000 utility workers with more than 3,000 trucks were poised to restore power to homes and businesses, hundreds of thousands of which could be affected by the storm.

— The New York Times

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