Millions Powerless In Florida

Hurricane Wilma Leaves 5 Dead, 6 Million Without Electricity

(CBS/AP) 
Agriculture officials said damage to their industry would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The greatest losses were believed to be to the winter vegetable crop, which provides more than half of the nation's supply from November to February. Also hurt were sugar cane fields and ornamental-plant nurseries.

The 21st storm in the worst Atlantic hurricane season on record, Wilma was blamed for at least five deaths statewide.

"It will be days or weeks before we are back to normal," Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said.

In the wake of complaints over the way the government dealt with Hurricane Katrina, the governor praised the early response to Wilma.

At Dania Beach City Hall, however, more than 100 people waited in line for ice and water that was supposed to arrive at 9 a.m. but never came. At the Orange Bowl in Miami, storm victims were frustrated to find limited supplies of relief items.

"Waiting six hours to get one bag of ice and six bottles of water is not a good thing," Alberto Martinez said.

Distribution went more smoothly elsewhere. At Key West High School, the food even included Key lime pie.

And many storm-savvy Floridians coped with good humor, their mood lifted in part by spectacular weather in the wake of Wilma: cloudless skies and unseasonably low temperatures that dropped into the 50s about dawn Tuesday and were in the mid-70s during the day.

"This weather is a blessing," said Agnes Howard, who found her home without air conditioning following a hurricane for the second time in two months.

"The heat in the aftermath of the last storm was insufferable," said her husband, John Terrill, referring to August's Katrina. "Nobody slept for days. At least we got a good night's sleep last night."

Wilma knocked out power for hundreds of miles, cutting off electricity to a staggering one out of three Florida residents. Florida Power & Light, the state' biggest utility, said Wilma affected more of its 4.3 million customers than any other natural disaster in the company's history.

In heavily populated areas such as Miami-Dade County, as many as 98 percent of its customers lost power.

At the Who's on 1st Deli in Fort Lauderdale, Maria Salvo and her daughters melted ice for coffee and made egg, cheese and sausage sandwiches on gas burners.

"We're selling whatever we have," she said as people waited in line with insulated cups.

Nearby, the steeple of the First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale was stripped bare, and the sanctuary lost much of its roof. Maintenance worker Don Anderson walked around the grounds with a chain saw, cutting up some of the 100 or so damaged trees.

Anderson said it was a blessing that the cold front that steered Wilma also brought cool weather.

"It'll keep the tensions down," he said. "The hotter it is, the worse they feel. But we'll survive long enough to come together. In fact, this is sometimes what we need. The people of America pull together in times of disaster."