Hurricane Jeanne killed four people, filled oceanfront condos with sand and left large swaths of coastline knee-deep in water last night as it plowed through parts of Florida scarred by Hurricane Frances three weeks ago.
Tree limbs and debris, including mattresses torn out of mobile homes, were washed down flooded streets along the Atlantic shore and about 4 million people were without electricity as Jeanne - a record fourth hurricane to strike Florida this season - ripped across the state.
Four people are reported dead in Florida, including a man who apparently tried to move a fallen power line. The storm triggered floods in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico last week in which as many as 2,000 people died.
An insurance industry group, Risk Management Solutions, estimated insured losses from Jeanne at $4 billion to $8 billion. Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan caused up to $18 billion in additional losses in Florida since mid-August.
"Just about everybody's been impacted by the storm in one way or the other," said Gov Jeb Bush. "We're kind of getting used to this."
Jeanne slammed ashore in the Atlantic coast town of Stuart just before midnight with 120 mph winds, leaving a trail of devastation in areas that had little time to recover after being battered by Frances on September 5th. Many damaged homes had been protected by little more than blue tarpaulin sheets.
As the wind and rain died down, rescue workers fanned out to search for potential victims, and officials assessed damage.
"What we are finding ... is moderate structural damage and slight structural damage," said Florida emergency co-ordinator Mr Mike DeLorenzo. "We don't have the situation we had in Ivan, where we had collapsed structures."
Up to 3 million of Florida's 17 million people had been urged to evacuate trailer parks, islands and flood-prone areas, but many, emboldened by having survived Frances or weary after six weeks of hurricane alerts, decided to ride it out at home.
Towns along the coast were littered with tree limbs, twisted signs, scraps of aluminum, strips of roof and other debris. In some areas, cars stood in fender-deep water and mobile homes rested in newly formed, muddy lakes.
At the Kennedy Space Center, NASA's space shuttles appeared to have escaped damage, but the storm ripped more siding panels off the landmark Vehicle Assembly Building, which was also damaged by Hurricane Frances, the US space agency said.