US: Six million people were still without power in Florida yesterday after Hurricane Wilma's seven-hour sweep through the state left at least six people dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.
As officials distributed ice, water and food to thousands of people displaced by the storm, they warned that it could take weeks for utilities to be restored.
Most shops remained closed because of a lack of electricity and long queues formed outside those that remained open. Residents armed with chainsaws and brooms and an army of electrical repair crews attacked the shambles left behind by Wilma's rampage.
"I'm really, really tired of this. This is the third time I've been without power (this year), first Katrina, then Rita, now this," said Miami man Joe Fraghatti (30). "I'm definitely thinking of moving west."
Federal authorities were better prepared for Wilma than for Katrina, which hit New Orleans in August, but Florida's logistics chief, Chuck Hagan, said yesterday that supplying meals continued to be a problem.
"All the food we had in the state . . . will be pushed out today and we presently do not have any meals in reserve," he said.
South Florida's major airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, were closed, a blow to the state's $57 billion-a-year tourist industry.
Wilma swamped the low-lying Florida Keys, surprising the estimated 90 per cent of residents who ignored evacuation orders. The tourist island Key West was inundated with hip-high water, forcing officials to postpone this week's annual Fantasy Fest, a Halloween costume celebration that normally draws thousands of people.
The storm went on to flood largely uninhabited areas of the southwest coast and raced across the state to greater Miami, where it shattered windows in offices, littered streets with debris and sank boats in Biscayne Bay.
More than 10 million people, 60 per cent of Florida's population, live in the counties battered by the storm, whose speed may have spared them from even greater damage.
Following Hurricane Andrew's devastation of parts of the state in 1992, Florida has introduced one of America's strictest building codes. Consequently, most houses were strong enough to withstand the hurricane winds.
Authorities confirmed that two people were dead in Collier county, two in Palm Beach county, one in Broward county and one in St Johns county. Before hitting Florida, the storm killed at least six people in Mexico and 13 others in Jamaica and Haiti. After leaving Florida, Wilma moved out into the Atlantic, where it merged with tropical depression Alpha, which caused mud slides in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where 24 people were still missing yesterday. Alpha was the 22nd named storm in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which is expected to continue until the end of November.
