Hurricane Wilma crashed ashore in southwest Florida and roared across the peninsula, pounding Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach today after striking Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and killing 17 people in the Caribbean.
Once the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Wilma weakened after hammering Cancun and Cozumel for three days with punishing winds and rains but revved up as it reached Florida with top sustained winds of 125 mph.
Wilma's powerful core struck the Florida mainland before dawn on the west coast near Naples, blasting beach sand across coastal roads, shredding power lines and bending palm trees. It hit as a Category 3 storm on the five-stage hurricane intensity scale, capable of causing significant damage.
"The rain is coming down sideways. We've had a handful of tornadoes," said Jaime Sarbaugh, an emergency management spokeswoman for Collier County, where Wilma made landfall.
"We're still in the middle of this hurricane so we're not sending anyone out right now." The sprawling storm, about 400 miles across, covered much of the Florida peninsula and some of its strongest winds whipped Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the state's most populous area with about 5 million people.
More than 630,000 people were without power, a power company said. Forecasters said Wilma could prove to be the strongest storm in Miami since Hurricane Andrew caused more than $25 billion in damage in August 1992.
Before hitting the mainland, Wilma's eye roared just north of Key West, the popular tourist island at the end of the 110-mile Florida Keys island chain.
The streets of the Keys, no more than 16 feet above sea level at their highest point and connected to the Florida mainland by a single road, were dark and deserted as the winds and rains picked up and power went out block by block.
Seawater sloshed into downtown streets in Key West and local media reported parts of the Overseas Highway were swamped in the Upper Keys.
Fatigued after being forced to evacuate for three earlier hurricanes this season, no more than 7 per cent of the Keys' 80,000 residents fled ahead of Wilma, officials said.
Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin said he had not yet received any reports of deaths or injuries.