Monday, October 24, 2005
Major storm surges and punishing winds threaten the state.
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- Rain pounded Key West late Sunday as Hurricane Wilma accelerated toward storm-weary Florida, threatening residents with 115-mph winds, tornadoes and a surge of seawater that could flood the Keys and the state's southwest coast.
After moving slowly through the Caribbean and along the Mexico coast, Wilma gained strength and picked up speed "like a rocket" Sunday, shooting toward the U.S. mainland as a Category 3 storm, forecasters said.
It was expected to make landfall before dawn in the state's southwest corner.
Then it's expected to race across southern Florida at about 30 mph, likely carving a wide path of destruction, forecasters said.
The southern half of the state was under a hurricane warning, and an estimated 160,000 residents were told to evacuate, though many in the low-lying Keys island chain decided to stay.
"I cannot emphasize enough to the folks that live in the Florida Keys: A hurricane is coming," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "Perhaps people are saying, 'I'm going to hunker down.' They shouldn't do that. They should evacuate, and there's very little time left to do so."
At 8 p.m. Sunday, Wilma's 110 mph winds were just 1 mph shy of Category 3 status. As the storm crossed the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters said they saw no evidence of wind shear that they hoped would reduce the hurricane's intensity before it makes landfall in southwest Florida.
Battered Mexico
Wilma had battered the Mexican coastline with howling winds and torrential rains before moving back out to sea. At least three people were killed in Mexico, after the deaths of 13 in Jamaica and Haiti.
Forecasters expected flooding from a storm surge of up to 17 feet on Florida's southwest coast and 8 feet in the Keys. Tornadoes were possible in some areas through today.
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, predicted Wilma would dramatically pick up speed as it approached Florida.
"It's really going to take off like a rocket," he said.
Because the storm was expected to move so swiftly across Florida, residents of Atlantic coast cities such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale were likely to face hurricane-force winds nearly as strong as those on the Gulf Coast, forecasters said.
Wilma would mark Florida's eighth hurricane since August 2004 and the fourth evacuation of the Keys this year.
Few leave keys
Fewer than 10 percent of the Keys' 78,000 residents evacuated, Monroe County Sheriff Richard Roth said.
"I'm disappointed, but I understand it," Roth said. "They're tired of leaving because of the limited damage they sustained during the last three hurricanes."
By Sunday evening, tornado warnings were already posted for parts of southwest Florida, and the hurricane's outer bands began lashing coastal areas in Wilma's path. A waterspout was spotted off Key West.
It was markedly different from conditions Sunday morning in the Keys, when sunshine beckoned boaters onto the water and many residents went about their normal routines.
"We were born and raised with storms, so we never leave," Ann Ferguson said from her front porch in Key West. "What happens, happens. If you believe in the Lord, you don't have no fear."
Protective grotto
Some 100 Key West parishioners attended Mass at a Catholic church where a grotto built in the 1920s is said to provide protection from dangerous storms. Ray Price took his usual stroll down Duval Street to check out the ocean. "Another day in paradise," Price said.
Some people shared that attitude on the mainland. At a park for recreational vehicles in Fort Myers Beach, Leonard Hasbrouck stood bare-chested as a firetruck rolled by blaring a warning.
"Mandatory evacuation," a firefighter shouted into a loudspeaker. "You are hereby ordered to leave your residence by the board of county commissioners of Lee County, Fla."
"They came by yesterday," Hasbrouck said. "I told them, 'I'm not going to ask you to rescue me.'"
Tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph were expected to begin late Sunday, and the core of the hurricane was forecast to slice across the peninsula today, speeding northeast at 25 to 30 mph.
Disaster declaration
Gov. Bush wrote his brother, President Bush, asking that the state be granted a major disaster declaration for 14 counties ahead of the storm. Many of the areas bracing for Wilma were hit by some of the state's previous hurricanes.
The governor said state officials expected heavy rain and widespread power outages. The National Guard was on alert, and state and federal officials had trucks of ice and food ready to deploy.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was poised to send in dozens of military helicopters and 13.2 million ready-to-eat meals if needed, spokesman Butch Kinerney said.
At 11 p.m. Sunday, Wilma was centered about 120 miles west of Key West, 170 miles southwest of Naples and moving northeast at about 20 mph. Hurricane-force wind of at least 74 mph extended up to 85 miles from the center and wind blowing at tropical storm-force reached outward up to 230 miles, the hurricane center said.