Wilma Whipping Cancun Coastline
Tourists Try To Flee 'Extremely Dangerous' Category 4 Storm
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Play CBS Video Video Hurricane Lessons In Florida Many in southwest Florida took their chances during Hurricane Charley last year - and experienced Category 4 fury. Jim Acosta reports that this year, storm gamblers are becoming storm scramblers.
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Video Evacuation Plans Tested As Florida prepares for Wilma, Tampa residents, especially retirees, are worried about how to evacuate without getting caught in massive traffic jams. Trish Regan reports.
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Video Wilma's Track Uncertain Web Exclusive: Forecasters are still struggling to determine the path that Hurricane Wilma will take. Brian Norcross reports that the storm will likely be weakened when it threatens Florida.
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Tourists rush to leave Cancun, Mexico ahead of Hurricane Wilma. Mexican authorities had ordered the evacuation of more than 33,000 tourists vacationing in two islands off Cancun. (OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images)
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A message to Wilma in in Palm City, Fla.: Don't blast us back to the Stone Age (AP Photo/The Stuart News)
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A hotel's watchman looks at the waves in Cancun beach, Oct. 20, 2005, as Hurricane Wilma threats the shores of the Yucatan peninsula. (Getty Images)
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Workers board the windows of a restaurant in anticipation of Hurricane Wilma in Cancun, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005. (AP)
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Strong waves batter Cancun (AP)
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Interactive Storm Tracker Follow all the storms of the 2009 season with satellite images, warnings and wind speed charts.
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Interactive Hurricane Wilma Photos, video and interactive elements showing the damage Hurricane Wilma left in Mexico and South Florida.
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News Tools How To Help Organizations you may contact to give aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
It also forced cancellation of a football game between No. 6 Miami and Georgia Tech.
Florida has seen seven hurricanes hit or pass close by since August 2004, causing more than $20 billion in estimated damage and killing nearly 150 people.
The head of Haiti's civil protection agency, Maria Alta Jean-Baptiste, said that at least 12 people had died in rain and landslides there since Monday. At least 2,000 Haitian families had been forced from flooded homes.
In Cuba, civil defense officials said more than 96,000 people had been evacuated from their homes in low lying areas. Some 14,500 students at boarding schools in rural Havana Province surrounding the nation's capital were sent home to their families until after the storm had passed.
Jamaica, where heavy rains have fallen since Sunday, closed almost all schools and 350 people were living in shelters. One man died Sunday in a rain-swollen river.
In the Cayman Islands, schools and most businesses were closed as heavy rains fell intermittently.
In Belize, a nation south of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, officials canceled cruise ship visits and tourists were evacuated from islands offshore.
Wilma's confirmed pressure readings early Wednesday dropped to 882 millibars, the lowest minimum pressure ever measured in a hurricane in the Americas, according to the hurricane center. Lower pressure translates into higher wind speed.
The strongest Atlantic storm on record, based on pressure readings, had been Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which registered 888 millibars.
On Monday, Wilma became the Atlantic hurricane season's 21st named storm, tying the record set in 1933 and exhausting the list of names for this year.
©MMV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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