Killer Wilma

Yahoo! News has the story.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Hurricane Wilma knifed through Florida with winds up to 125 mph Monday, shattering windows in skyscrapers, peeling away roofs 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 five people were killed in Florida, bringing the death toll from the storm's march through the tropics to 24.

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, cutting electricity 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.

"A bunch of us that are the old-time Key Westers are kind of waking up this morning, going, `Well, maybe I should have paid a little more attention,'" said restaurant owner Amy Culver-Aversa, among the 90 percent of Key West residents who chose to ignore the fourth mandatory evacuation order this year.

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 flatten trees, break water mains, litter the streets with billboards, turn debris into missiles and light up the sky with the blue-green flash of popping power transformers.

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

The storm's reach was so great that it left homes and businesses without power as far north as Daytona Beach, an eight-hour drive north 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.

I hear she's headed out to the Atlantic after she finishes her jaunt ashore over Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. I also hear she's formed a Nor'easter that's headed right toward the NY-NJ-Conn tri-state area of the US Northeast. Great. Looks like your humble Fool's gonna get drenched.

Michelle Malkin has more:

Back down in Florida, Boudicca's Voice is blogging the hurricane and has compiled a map of Florida bloggers.

Tim at Hyscience watches FOX News reporter Orlando Salinas as his shoes get blown off by storm winds.

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Some vivid Wilma photos here and here.

Best Wilma photo caption of the day at Small Dead Animals. Ha!

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National Guard prepares:

- 5,000 Florida National Guard troops are on alert.

New York sends personnel and equipment.

- 14 members of the South Carolina National Guard are headed down to Florida to help with communications.

- Air crews from the North Carolina Air National Guard are assisting with medical evacuations.

Didn't I hear something about a Tropical Storm Alpha? I thought so!

Oy!