Wilma Kills At Least Six In Fla.

Hurricane Wilma knifed through Florida with winds up to 125 mph Monday, shattering windows in skyscrapers, breaking water mains and knocking out power to 3.2 million customers, with still a month left to go in the busiest Atlantic storm season on record.

At least six people were killed in Florida, bringing the death toll from the storm's march through the tropics to 25.

After a slow, weeklong journey that saw it pound Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula for two days, Wilma made a mercifully swift seven-hour dash across lower Florida from its southwestern corner to heavily populated Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast.

"We have been huddled in the living room trying to stay away from the windows. It got pretty violent there for a while," said 25-year-old Eddie Kenny, who was at his parents' home in Plantation near Fort Lauderdale. "We have trees down all over the place and two fences have been totally demolished, crushed, gone."

The 21st storm of the 2005 season — and the eighth hurricane to hit Florida in 15 months — howled ashore around daybreak just south of Marco Island as a Category 3, knocking out power to the entire Florida Keys. A tidal surge of up to 9 feet swamped parts of Key West in chest-high water, and U.S. 1, the only highway to the mainland, was flooded.

CBS News correspondent Trish Regan reports that officials estimated that only one in 10 Keys residents obeyed the mandatory evacuation order. Patricia Ferguson, a waitress, is one of many here who said it will be the last time she braves a hurricane.

"Nobody thought it was going to be like this," Ferguson said. "When they say evacuate, I will be gone."

As it moved across the state, Wilma weakened to a Category 2 storm with winds of 105 mph. But it was still powerful enough to peel away roofs, flatten trees, litter the streets with billboards, turn debris into missiles and light up the sky with the blue-green flash of popping power transformers.

CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta reports the storm humbled the posh resort town of Naples, dumping buckets of rain on expectations of a milder storm. The storm's eye hauled surge straight through remote Everglades City, swamping houses and turning roads into canals.

Officials said it was the most damaging storm to hit the Fort Lauderdale since 1950.

The storm left homes and businesses without power as far north as Daytona Beach, an eight-hour drive up Interstate-95 from Key West. A tornado spun off by the storm damaged an apartment complex near Melbourne on the east coast, 200 miles from where Wilma came ashore.

By early afternoon, Wilma had swirled out into the open Atlantic, back up to 115-mph Category 3 strength but on a course unlikely to have much effect on the East Coast. Forecasters said it would stay well offshore.

In Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Miami Beach, countless windows were blown out of high-rises. Along downtown Miami's Brickell Avenue, broken glass from skyscrapers littered streets and sidewalks. Broken water mains in the Fort Lauderdale area prompted advisories to boil water, and a ruptured main in downtown Miami sprayed water 15 feet in the air.

The Miami police department building lost some letters on its sign.

"It was a wild and crazy night," Lt. Bill Schwartz said. "This building, built in 1976, shook like it was 1876."

The insurance industry estimated the insured losses at anywhere from $2 billion to $9 billion.

A man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs died when a tree fell on him. Another man in rural Collier County died when his roof collapsed on him or a tree fell on his roof. In Palm Beach County, a man went to move his van and was killed when debris smashed him into the windshield.

An 83-year-old St. Johns County woman died in a weekend car crash while evacuating. A man in Collier County had a fatal heart attack while walking in the storm. An 82-year-old woman in Boyton Beach died after a sliding glass door in her living room fell on her as she looked out.

Wilma was also blamed for six deaths in Mexico and 13 in Jamaica and Haiti, bringing its over toll to 25.

In Cuba, rescuers used scuba gear, inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles to pull nearly 250 people from their flooded homes in Havana. The constant water pouring over Havana's seafront drive combined with the city's poor drainage system produced flooding as far as four blocks inland, reports CBS News' Portia Siegelbaum. Water was waist-high in parts of the fishing village of Santa Fe, just to the west of Havana. Barefooted residents were out surveying the damage and debris floating by.

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's arrival in Florida came five days after it astounded forecasters with terrifying Category 5 winds of 175 mph. At one point, it was the most intense storm — as measured by internal barometric pressure — on record in the Atlantic basin.

Wilma shared space in the Atlantic with Tropical Depression Alpha, which became the record-breaking 22nd named storm of the 2005 season. Alpha, which drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Sunday, was not considered a threat to the United States.

President Bush, bitterly criticized for a sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, signed a disaster declaration for hurricane-damaged areas and promised swift action to help Wilma's victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was prepared to send in dozens of military helicopters and 13.2 million ready-to-eat meals.

National Guard units airlifted 12 patients from a Key West hospital, and other units were prepared to deliver food, water and other supplies to the Keys.

For a change, lack of air conditioning was not an immediate concern in the aftermath of a hurricane. The strong cold front that pushed Wilma through Florida was expected to send the wind-chill factor into the 40s Tuesday morning.