Wilma Slams Mexican Resorts

The fearsome core of Hurricane Wilma slammed into the island of Cozumel early Friday, starting a long, grinding march across Mexico's resort-studded coastline, where thousands of stranded tourists hunkered down in shelters and hotel ballrooms.

"That eye of the storm is now 35 miles wide," said CBS News Early Show weatherman Dave Price, at the National Hurricane Center. "The tropical storm-force winds out of this hurricane extend almost 200 miles. That's massive."

At 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Wilma was about 35 miles from Cozumel, Mexico, and moving toward the north-northwest at 5 mph.

Cuba evacuated more than 200,000 people in the face of the Wilma, which has already killed at least 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica. The hurricane is expected to sideswipe Cuba's tip — 130 miles east of Cancun — then swing to the right and head toward hurricane-weary Florida.

Most of the tourists fled the Florida Keys, but some residents of the island chain didn't seem in a hurry to evacuate as Hurricane Wilma churned slowly through the Caribbean.

Landfall somewhere on Florida's western coast was not likely until sometime Monday afternoon, forecasters said, but authorities ordered residents to start evacuating parts of southwest Florida later Friday, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta.

If Wilma hits the FEMA trailer village where she now lives, "I have nothing. Back to the shelters again," Lilly Marsans said. She lost her home last year to Hurricane Charley.

"It's already raining in southern Florida, and the storm is so far away, but it looks like the storm will actually slow down a little bit later today, and we may not see landfall in Florida until sometime late on Sunday," CBS News Meteorologist George Cullen said.

Although Wilma was expected to approach Florida from the west, forecasters warned that major cities on the peninsula's Atlantic Coast, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach could be hit by strong winds and heavy rains.

Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency Thursday. He said the state had food, water, ice and other supplies ready and disaster-response teams that included up to 7,500 National Guard members standing by.

"We are battle-tested, well-resourced, well-trained," he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was positioning emergency materials in Jacksonville, Lakeland and Homestead. FEMA acting chief R. David Paulison said the agency has 150 truckloads of ice and 150 truckloads of water, and the Red Cross has 200,000 meals available.

"We are ready for the storm, as much as you can be," Paulison said in Washington.

High winds from the Category 4 hurricane — once the most intense on record in the Americas — were already hitting the island of Cozumel, a popular stop for divers and cruise ship passengers, where hundreds of residents and 970 tourists were riding out the hurricane.

"The most important thing now ... is to protect lives, protect the lives of our children, of our grandparents," President Vicente Fox said in a broadcast address to the nation. "Possessions can be replaced."

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wilma has "the potential to do catastrophic damage" on the Yucatan Peninsula. With its 150 mph winds, Wilma is more powerful than Hurricane Katrina at the time it plowed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 people.

Forecasters said the storm could strengthen to a Category 5 hurricane before hitting land. Its slow progress delayed its expected arrival in Florida until early next week, but fueled fears that it would have more time to dump rain and pummel Mexico's low-lying Mayan Riviera, possibly causing major damage. The hurricane was expected to churn over land for nearly two days.

The hurricane's eye is so large it might take hours to pass over land, leading to fears that confused residents might leave shelters in the middle of the storm.

At the beachside Playa Azul hotel on Cozumel's north end, manager Martha Nieto said "the waves are getting very high." "We wish it would be over. The waiting drives you to desperation," Nieto said by telephone.

After airports closed late Thursday, desperate tourists who had lined up for hours in a failed bid to get on the last planes out were instead shuttled from luxury hotels to sweaty emergency shelters, or crowded into hotel ballrooms used as storm shelters.

About 20,000 tourists remained at shelters and hotels on the mainland south of Cancun, and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 in the city itself.

Devon Anderson, 21, from Sacramento, Calif., said he was packed into a local school with other Americans, and that the army never arrived to board up the windows.

"There's no food, no water," he said. "We've pretty much just been deserted."

Some, like 30-year-old Carlos Porta of Barcelona, Spain, were handed plastic bags with a pillow and blanket.

"From a luxury hotel to a shelter. It makes you angry. But what can you do?" he said. "It's just bad luck."

In Cancun, high winds bent palm trees and waves gobbled the city's white-sand beaches. Nearly 50 hotels were evacuated, leaving the normally busy tourist zone deserted.

Even before landfall, Wilma was playing games with sports schedules.

The game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs was rescheduled to Friday night to beat Hurricane Wilma's arrival in Florida. The game will begin at 7 p.m. Friday instead of Sunday afternoon.

Several college football games in south Florida were rescheduled, also. Central Florida will host Tulane — a team whose school was ravaged by Katrina earlier this year — on Friday night, one day ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, the NHL's Florida Panthers had not yet made a decision about their game with Ottawa on Saturday night.