Florida: Residents armed with chain saws, brooms and an army of electrical repair crews on Wednesday attacked the shambles left behind by Hurricane Wilma?s rampage through Florida, where 6 million people were without power.
Officials said it could take weeks for Florida's most heavily populated region?the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach area?to return to normal.
Wilma, at one time the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, killed four people in Florida after a devastating trek through the Caribbean.
Water and gas became precious commodities, and people waited hours for free water, ice, and food. More than 500 people waited outside one store for cleanup supplies.
Lines stretched for blocks at the few gas stations where fuel is available, and arguments broke out when motorists tried to cut in line.
On Wednesday, Wilma?s top winds had fallen to 185 kmph as the storm sped northeast over the Atlantic at 85 kmph, the US National Hurricane Center said.
The 2005 hurricane season, fuelled by warmer-than-usual sea temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean, has been a record-breaker, with 22 tropical storms or hurricanes, outranking the mark of 21 set in 1933.
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