NAPLES, Fla. – Hurricane Wilma plowed into southwest Florida early today with howling 125 mph winds and dashed across the state to the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, blowing out windows in skyscrapers, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to millions of people. At least three deaths in Florida were 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.
Early in the afternoon, it was back up to Category 3 with 115 mph winds as it swirled out in the open Atlantic.
As it made its away across the state, Wilma caused widespread damage, flattening trees, tearing off screens, breaking water mains, littering the streets with signs and downed power lines, and turning debris into missiles. Officials said it was the most damaging hurricane to hit the Fort Lauderdale area since 1950 and damage was estimated in the billions of dollars.
“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. President Vicente Fox announced plans to start evacuating about 30,000 frazzled tourists even as he worked to restore the profitable image of a carefree beachfront paradise.
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.
A Coral Springs man died when a tree fell on him. Another man in rural Collier County died when his roof collapsed on him or a tree fell on his roof. In Palm Beach County, a man went to move his van while Wilma’s eye passed overhead, and wind-borne debris smashed him into the windshield of the vehicle, authorities said.
The hurricane is expected to race up the Atlantic Seaboard and reach the coast of Canada by early Wednesday. Forecasters said that it should stay largely offshore along most of the East Coast, but another storm system coming in behind it from the west could bring heavy rain to New England and the Mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday.
The storm flooded large sections of Key West and other areas and knocked out power to up to 3.2 million homes and businesses as it rushed across the state and buffeted heavily populated Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties on the Atlantic coast with gusts over 100 mph.
In Fort Lauderdale, the hurricane blew out windows in numerous skyscrapers. In downtown Miami, broken glass from skyscrapers littered some streets and sidewalks in the Brickell Avenue financial district. A broken water main sprayed about 15 feet in the air, flooding four or five blocks of the avenue with up to 6 inches of water.
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.”
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.”
At 4 p.m. EDT, Wilma was centered about 200 miles northeast of West Palm Beach and moving northeast at about 29 mph.
President Bush signed a disaster declaration for hurricane-damaged areas and promised swift action to help victims.
“We have prepositioned food, medicine, communications equipment, urban search-and-rescue teams,” he said. “We will work closely with local and state authorities to respond to this hurricane.”
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency was bitterly criticized for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, this time the agency had people working side by side with state emergency officials, said David Paulison, acting FEMA director.
“We are going to make sure that we have good visibility on anything that’s going on the ground to make sure we … understand exactly what’s happening,” he said on CBS.
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 Mtoday 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.”
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