Hurricane Wilma plowed into southwest Florida early yesterday with howling 200kph winds and pounding waves, swamping Key West and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people as it began a dash across the state toward Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
The same storm that brought ruin over the weekend to resort towns along Mexico's Yucatan Coast came ashore in Florida as a strong Category 3 hurricane, but within 2 1/2 hours it had weakened into a Category 2 with winds of 177kph.
"We have been huddled in the living room trying to stay away from the windows. It got pretty violent there for a while," said Eddie Kenny, 25, who was at his parents' home in Plantation near Fort Lauderdale with his wife. "We have trees down all over the place and two fences have been totally demolished, crushed, gone."
In Cuba, huge waves crashed into Havana, swamping neighborhoods up to four blocks inland with floodwaters reaching up to nearly a meter in some places. Basement apartments were submerged. In Cancun, Mexico, troops and federal police moved in to control looting at stores and shopping centers ripped open by the hurricane, and hunger and frustration mounted among Mexicans and stranded tourists.
Wilma, Florida's eighth hurricane in 15 months, made landfall in the state at 6:30am near Cape Romano, 35km south of Naples, bringing with it a potential 5.4m storm surge, the National Hurricane Center said. Up to 25cm of rain and tornadoes were forecast for parts of central and southern Florida.
"I looked out our place and I saw a bunch of stuff flying by," said Paul Tucchinio, who was riding out the storm in a condo three blocks from the beach in Naples. "It sounds like someone threw a bunch of rocks against the boards. It's wicked."
The storm flooded large sections of Key West and other areas and knocked out power to more than 300,000 homes and businesses as it raced across the state and began buffeting heavily populated Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties on the Atlantic coast.
In Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, Kim DuBois sat in her darkened house with her two children and husband, with the power out and the storm shutters up. For light they used a battery-powered pumpkin lantern they bought for Halloween.
"I could hear tiles coming off the roof," she said. "There are trees on cars and flooding at the end of our street." She added: "Really what I'm afraid of is tornadoes."
A man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs died when a tree fell on him, Broward County spokesman Carl Fowler said. Wilma killed at least three people in Mexico and 13 others in Jamaica and Haiti as it made is way across the Caribbean last week.
More than 33,000 people were in shelters across the state. But in the low-lying Florida Keys, not even 10 percent of the Keys' 78,000 residents evacuated, Sheriff Richard Roth said.
About 35 percent of Key West was flooded, including the airport, said Jay Gewin, an assistant to the island city's mayor. No travel was possible in or out of the city, he said.
Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin said the flooding was severe -- "more extensive than we've seen in the past." But he said he would not know until the full extent of any damage until the winds died down.
By 9am, the storm was centered in the middle of the state, and was moving northeast at about 40kph.
By midafternoon, a weaker Wilma was expected to skirt the southern end of Lake Okeechobee and head into the Atlantic off Palm Beach County. By early tomorrow, it was expected to be off the coast of Canada, but forecasters said it may not bring heavy rain because its projected track was far off shore.
David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said FEMA personnel were in shelters waiting for the hurricane winds to die down before they could assess the damage and begin relief efforts. He said he was "very concerned" that so many people in the Keys did not evacuate.
While FEMA was bitterly criticized for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, this time the agency had people working side by side with state emergency officials, Paulison said.
"We are going to make sure that we have good visibility on anything that's going on the ground to make sure we ... understand exactly what's happening," he said on CBS.
Weary forecasters also monitored Tropical Depression Alpha, which became the record-breaking 22nd named storm of the Atlantic season this year.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS