Wilma batters Mexico's coast for Day 2; at least 3 die

Some people looted convenience stores and a furniture store.
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) -- Hurricane Wilma punished Mexico's Caribbean coastline for a second day Saturday, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble to higher floors. At least three people were killed.
Waves slammed into seaside pools and sent water surging over the narrow strip of sand housing Cancun's luxury hotels and raucous bars, joining the sea with the alligator-infested lagoon. Downtown, winds tore banks open, leaving automated teller machines standing in knee-deep water.
Wilma weakened to a Category 2 hurricane by midafternoon as it inched northward, with sustained winds of 100 mph, but it was expected to pick up speed today after moving out over the Gulf of Mexico. It was likely to sideswipe Cuba before hitting Florida, probably Monday.
Watch in Florida
A hurricane watch was issued Saturday for the entire southern Florida peninsula, with heavy rain from Wilma's outer bands already causing hip-deep flooding in the Fort Lauderdale area. At the same time, a record 22nd tropical storm -- Alpha -- formed in the Atlantic.
As Wilma's eye passed over Cancun on Saturday, the air became calm and eerily electric. Some residents ventured briefly from their hiding spots to survey the flooded, debris-filled streets.
Several dozen people looted at least four convenience stores, carrying out bags of canned tuna, pasta and soda, while others dragged tables, chairs and lamps from a destroyed furniture store. Police were guarding only larger stores, including a downtown Wal-Mart and an appliance store.
A brief outing during the eye's calm revealed a downtown Cancun littered with glass, tree trunks and cars up to their roofs in water. The only cleanup crew visible consisted of two workers using saws to break up a tangle of tree branches. The front half of a Burger King had collapsed, and at least one gas station had its roof blown away.
State and federal officials said they had little information on damage because Wilma's winds, at 110 mph, made reconnaissance almost impossible.
The deaths
Yucatan Gov. Patricio Patron told Formato 21 radio that one person was killed by a falling tree, but he offered no details. And in Playa del Carmen, two people died from injuries suffered Friday when a gas tank exploded during the storm, Quintana Roo state officials said.
The storm earlier killed 13 people in Jamaica and Haiti.
Quintana Roo State Civil Protection Director Maj. Jose Nemecio said a few emergency crews were able to begin distributing emergency supplies in Playa del Carmen on Saturday. But there were few reports on the overall extent of the damage.
"We really know nothing. There are no telephones, no cell phones," he said. "We have no news from Cancun, Playa del Carmen or Cozumel. I think this is going to be a catastrophic situation."
Added Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Cantu: "Never in the history of Quintana Roo have we had a storm like this."
Status of Cozumel
On the island of Cozumel, which has been isolated since weathering the brunt of the storm Friday, fruit and vegetable salesman Jorge Ham, 26, told The Associated Press by phone that winds had dropped significantly. He saw no catastrophic damage during a brief tour of downtown Saturday.
"There are broken windows, downed trees, fallen power lines, but nothing else," he said. "People have taken shelter."
In Playa del Carmen, to the south of Cancun, screaming winds flattened wood-and-tarpaper houses and sent water tanks and plywood sheets flying.
In Cancun, the storm's angry winds ripped roofing off luxury hotels and knocked out windows, filling rooms and shelters with water and forcing some evacuees to seek higher ground. Others slept with plastic sheeting as bedding.
Weak ceiling tiles forced officials to evacuate at least one downtown shelter housing some 1,000 people, mostly Americans.
Hotel workers pushed furniture up against windows, but the force of the wind blasted through the improvised barriers.
In the streets, office furniture and broken glass bobbed in water that sloshed between buildings. Residents watched the debris float by from upstairs balconies.
Frightening
Buildings shook in the wind as if earthquakes were hitting them, terrifying tourists and residents waiting out the storm in sweltering, dark shelters.
"This was a little more than I bargained for," said Julie Martin, 47, of Charlotte, N.C., one of about 20 people who were evacuated from the beachside Ritz-Carlton resort to the downtown Xbalamque Hotel.
"You really don't think it's this bad when you see it on TV," she said. "You really don't know what it's like until it's happening to you. It would be very easy to panic but you know you just can't."
At least Martin had a room.
Fellow Ritz refugee M.J. Dellaquila 63, of Cloverdale, Calif., found herself with about 20 others sleeping on the floor of a common area of the Xbalamque after the windows in their individual rooms were blown out by Wilma's winds.
"With a storm this big the effect would probably be the same in the United States, but there you can rent a car and get out," she said.
President Vicente Fox planned to travel to the affected region today. In a taped address to the nation, he said that, while the Mexican government was taking care of thousands of stranded tourists, it hadn't forgotten its citizens.
"Make no mistake. Our priority, our job ... is with our own people," he said.
The army and navy was already preparing emergency supplies, including food, water, medicine and roofing, in various southern cities. Fox said it will be sent in as soon as possible.
New storm forms
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Alpha formed Saturday in the Caribbean Sea, setting the record for the most number of storms in an Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters said. Alpha is the season's 22nd tropical storm and marks the first time a letter from the Greek alphabet has been used because the list of storm names is used up. The previous record of 21 storms stood since 1933.
At 5 p.m. EDT, the storm had sustained winds of about 40 mph. Its was moving northwest at about 15 mph, the Hurricane Center said. A tropical storm warning was in place for Haiti and parts of the Dominican Republic, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for the Turks and Caicos islands and the southeastern Bahamas.