October 26, 2005

Hurricane-scarred Florida cleans up again

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - Chain saw-wielding residents and an army of electrical repair crews attacked the shambles Hurricane Wilma left in Florida, while frustrations grew on Tuesday as thousands waited hours for supplies and gasoline.

Wilma killed five people in Florida on Monday and one in the Bahamas after a devastating trek through the Caribbean that killed 17 in Haiti and Mexico.

Residents look over the wreckage of houseboats, after they were destroyed by Hurricane Wilma, in North Bay Village, Florida October 25, 2005. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

It left 6 million people in Florida without electricity and risk analysts said it caused up to $10 billion of damage in the state.

A powerful Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds when it struck southwest Florida on Monday, Wilma was the eighth hurricane to hit the state in 15 months, an unprecedented assault by nature that left residents reeling.

"Really, really tired of this. This is the third time I've been without power (this year), first Katrina, then Rita, now this," said Joe Fraghatti, 30, who spent an hour on a fruitless search for gasoline. "I'm definitely thinking of moving west."

From Miami to Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, thousands waited in line for free bags of ice and bottles of water while police kept an eye on frustrated car drivers queuing for hours at the handful of open gasoline stations.

Wilma's top winds had fallen to 85 mph as it sped northeast over the Atlantic toward Canada's Maritime provinces, bringing wind and rain to the northeast United States.

The 2005 Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season has been a record-buster, 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, caused more than $30 billion in damage and likely became the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

NO LIGHTS, AIR CONDITIONING

Miguel Vazquez, owner of the Art Deco supermarket on Miami Beach, threw out more than $12,000 of meat after the power failed. The store was dark but open with the refrigerators, cash registers and the deli running on generators.

"I hear they're going to be making coffee too, so everybody's excited about that," customer Judy Smigel said.

Florida Power & Light, the state's major utility, said 2.9 million customers, or about 6 million people, were without power on Tuesday after Wilma cut a swath across Florida from Naples on the southwest coast to West Palm Beach on the east.

Emergency officials said they were scrambling to find food and tarps for storm victims. Hundreds of people waited at the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami for water and ice, cheering wildly when the first truck arrived, hours behind schedule.

North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns criticized county and state decisions to set up 11 big distribution centers rather than getting small municipalities to hand out supplies locally.

"You have thousands and thousands of people waiting in line for hours," Burns told television station WSVN. "Here we are, able bodies. ... Let us help."

The storm shattered windows in office towers, littered streets with debris, sank boats and left the chronically congested region with only a few working traffic lights.

Wilma swamped the low-lying Florida Keys, where evacuation orders were widely ignored and the water rose hip-high in places. In Key West, where the streets were mostly dry again,Gov. Jeb Bush asked residents waiting in line for ice and ready-to-eat meals if they would evacuate next time.

"Absolutely!" one replied.

The storm also pounded Cuba, flooding Havana.

(Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana, Michael Peltier in Tallahassee, Laura Myers in Key West, Jim Loney and Michael Christie in Miami, John Marquis in the Bahamas)

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