Wilma Drenches Cancun, Eyes Fla.

Hurricane Wilma's outer edge battered Cancun's white-sand beaches Thursday as officials ordered guests out of hotels, tourists jockeyed for spots on the last flights out, and tens of thousands of people from Honduras to the Florida Keys were evacuated ahead of the "extremely dangerous" storm.

"This is still a very, very powerful hurricane," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

It briefly grew into a Category 5 storm before weakening to a Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph.

Wilma weakened slightly as it roared toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and south Florida after killing 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica. It was expected to reach Cancun early Friday, the second hurricane to hit the resort this year, following Hurricane Emily in July, before turning northeast toward Florida.

With rain and rough surf already pounding Cancun, officials ordered 20,000 tourists to leave high-rise hotels that line the famous beach, although some ballrooms would be turned into shelters, Mayor Francisco Antonio Alor said.

Guests at Hyatt Hotel who don't leave will be taken to shelters, hotel supervisor Roseanna Truiva said.

"This always happens every year, so we are preparing everything really well," Truiva told CBS Radio News.

People in southwest Florida, where Hurricane Charley wreaked havoc last year, are all but covering their eyes, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta.

"We've gone through enough. Four hurricanes last year is enough for a lifetime to live through," said Punta Gorda resident Rhondia Burke.

"Everybody along the southwestern shores of Florida really should be thinking about getting away from the shoreline over the next 12 to 24 hours," warned CBS News meteorologist George Cullen.

"We have everybody on standby, and we're just going to see what happens," said Punta Gorda mayor Stephen Fabian on CBS News' The Early Show.

The NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs was rescheduled to Friday night to beat Hurricane Wilma's arrival in Florida. It had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon, about when Wilma is expected to hit Florida's southwestern coast.

Much of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula was under a hurricane warning Thursday, as the storm swirled off its eastern shore. The storm, already blamed for 13 deaths, slowed down, pushing back predictions of when it might hit Florida.

"More like Sunday than Saturday," said Cullen.

Everyone was told to evacuate the island of Isla Mujeres, near Cancun. Authorities were poised to move out thousands of others Thursday from low-lying areas in a 600-mile swath covering Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Cayman Islands.

By Thursday noon, Cuban civil defense had evacuated 222,500 people living in areas threatened by flooding, or whose homes were not expected to withstand the heavy rains or strong winds expected to accompany Wilma, reports CBS News' Portia Siegelbaum in Havana.

It was a familiar sight in Florida, reports CBS News correspondent Peter King: car- and truckloads of people, crowded airports and bus stations crammed with coastal residents trying to get out of town. As always, stocks of generators, gasoline and bottled water were selling fast.

"They're positioning post-storm help, some of it here in Orlando, and watching to see where Wilma goes," King said "The problem is that the so-called 'cone of uncertainty' ranges from the Big Bend area in the north all the way down to the Keys," which is the only area where an evacuation order, for tourists, has been issued.
At 11 a.m. EDT, the storm was located about 170 miles from Cozumel, Mexico, and heading west-northwest at nearly 7 mph. Maximum sustained winds were "only" 145 mph.

Still, Wilma is expected to get stronger over the next 24 hours, and hurricane center director Max Mayfield warned, "If this were the only hurricane of the season, this would be the event of the year."

Even residents who rode out Charley are making evacuation plans, reports Acosta. After Katrina, it just doesn't make sense to stay.

"We're outta here. Tallahassee, here I come," sang a woman heading for northern Florida.

Even that might not be far enough.

"This storm could affect the whole east Coast next week, as possibly even a hurricane ... Long Island and coastal New England," warned Cullen. "We could see a pretty serious storm if this storm track holds up."

Some of the estimated 70,000 tourists still in Cancun, Mexico, and surrounding areas were taking the warnings more seriously than others.

Standing knee-deep in the ocean and drinking beer in Playa de Carmen, south of Cancun, Mike Goepfrich, of Minneapolis, said: "As long as they give me beer in the shelter, and my kids are safe, we'll be fine. We're going to ride it out here."

Nearby, fisherman Rolando Ramirez, 51, was helping others pull their fishing boats from the water in preparation for Wilma's passage.

"People here aren't concerned about anything," said Ramirez. "They don't know that when the hurricane comes, this will all be under water."

Countries across the region prepared for the worst. Much of Central America was still recovering from Hurricane Stan, which left more than 1,500 people dead or missing.

The storm was on a curving course that would carry it through the narrow channel between Cuba and Mexico on Friday, possibly within a few miles of Cancun and Cozumel.

In the coastal state of Quintana Roo — which includes Cancun — officials ordered the evacuation of four low-lying islands, including Isla Mujeres, and also closed the popular cruise ship port on the island of Cozumel.

"This is getting very powerful, very threatening," President Vicente Fox said. Hundreds of schools in Quintana Roo were ordered closed Thursday and Friday, and many will be used as storm shelters.

Predictions differed on where the hurricane would go and how strong it would be when it reaches U.S. shores.

"We could see a 10-foot storm surge, 100 mph winds over the southern part of Florida, including the Keys, along with some very heavy rain," said Cullen.

The state 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.

Wilma is the record-tying 12th hurricane of the Atlantic season, and 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.

"We thought they were done," said Joyce Eichner of Punta Gorda. "We just last week had the house completed. Now with this one, the water surge could kill it."

The six-month hurricane season does not end until Nov. 30.