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Wilma hammers Florida mainland
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-24 22:09

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.

"It's still angry out there. Oh my, the trees are really blowing," said Key West resident Mary Casanova, who weathered Wilma at a hotel in downtown Key West.

"I'm just praying that we just have a trailer out there," said Casanova, who lives at the north end of Key West, where many of her neighbors decided to ride out the storm.

Fatigued after being forced to evacuate for three earlier hurricanes this season, no more than 7 percent of the Keys' 80,000 residents fled ahead of Wilma, officials said.

Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin said early on Monday he had not received any reports of deaths or injuries.

In southwest Florida, where residents crowded restaurants and bars on Sunday evening and seemed to pay little heed to warnings, the hurricane's tidal surge was expected to be up to 18 feet above normal.

At 7 a.m. (1100 GMT), Wilma's center was just north of Everglades City and was moving northeast at a brisk 23 mph (37 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended up to 90 miles , while tropical storm-force winds stretched out 230 miles from the center.

Wilma was accelerating as it raced across the Florida Peninsula. The storm plowed through the heart of the Everglades -- Florida's famed "River of Grass" and home to endangered species like the Florida panther and tens of thousands of alligators -- on a path to the state's east coast around Palm Beach County.
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