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Wilma delivers blow to Florida

Hurricane kills six, leaves 3.2 million without power

George Halloran walks past a damaged houseboat Monday at a marina in Key West.

Audio Slide Show: Wilma slams ashore

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WILMA RESPONSE

More than 3,000 National Guardsmen mobilized; another 3,000 on alert

More than 33,000 people in shelters

50 truckloads of ice, 50 truckloads of water, 5 truckloads of meals delivered to Homestead Air Force Base

100 truckloads of ice, 100 truckloads of water, 25 truckloads of meals ready at Jacksonville Naval Air Station

6 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams deployed to pre-stage in Orlando

6 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams on alert at their home bases.
-- Associated Press

HURRICANE WILMA

11 p.m. ET Monday

Location of storm eye: 260 miles (416 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

Top winds: 125 mph (200 kph)

Latitude: 31.6 north

Longitude: 74.3 west

Movement: NE at 47 mph (75 kph)

Source: National Hurricane Center

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NAPLES, Florida (CNN) -- Hurricane Wilma battered Florida with heavy rain, widespread flooding and damaging winds for about six hours Monday before heading out to the Atlantic and regaining strength.

At least six people were killed by the storm, including a man in Loxahatchee who was moving a van during the height of the storm when a tree branch slammed through the windshield, authorities said.

Local officials reported "a lot of power outages, a lot of coastal flooding, a lot of broken windows in high-rise buildings, a lot of roofs that are going to need a lot of repair," said R. David Paulison, acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"It looks like Lee and Collier counties are the most heavily damaged," Paulison said. (Watch Wilma's damage in Florida -- 1:53)

Those two counties -- along the southwest coast and home to tourist destinations of Naples, Sanibel Island and Marco Island -- were among those heavily damaged when Hurricane Charley swept ashore last year with 145 mph winds.

Paulison said search-and-rescue teams were beginning to canvas the region, and authorities were especially concerned about mobile home parks where residents may have ridden out the storm. (Watch Paulison describe the damage -- 2:26)

More than 3.2 million homes and businesses were without power, affecting more than 6 million people.

About 36,000 people were staying in 124 shelters set up across the state, Paulison said. Nineteen airports -- including Miami International Airport -- were closed, he said.

The storm made landfall as a powerful Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 125 mph at 6:30 a.m. ET on Cape Romano, about 22 miles south of Naples, and pushed across Gullivan Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands and into the Everglades.

It then raced across Florida as a Category 2 storm with top winds around 100 mph, causing damage from Palm Beach to Miami and as far south as Key West. By late afternoon the storm was well into the Atlantic and had regained Category 3 status with 125 mph winds. (Watch Wilma uproot a tree in Miami -- 1:22)

Rural Glades County, inland from the southwestern coast, reported "significant damage to their mobile home parks," Paulison said. "So we'll be looking at those very carefully with our search-and-rescue teams."

Significant hurricane storm surge swamped Lake Okeechobee and parts of the southwestern coastline, where the highest surge occurred, said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Earlier, Gov. Jeb Bush warned people in hurricane-ravaged areas to remain indoors as long as possible. (Watch Bush warn Floridians -- 3:26)

As of 11 p.m. ET, Wilma had passed the Bahamas and was 260 miles (416 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, moving northeast at near 47 mph, according to the hurricane center.

The hurricane's maximum sustained winds remained at 125 mph.

The center said the storm was expected to increase in forward speed overnight, putting it "a few hundred miles" southeast of North Carolina's Outer Banks Tuesday morning.

It could reach the Canadian Maritimes by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, the center said.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said Wilma would weaken and "basically turn into a nor'easter-type system," pushing wet, windy and cold air from the Atlantic into New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

'Hurricane fatigue'

The Florida Keys took a hit early Monday morning as the southern eye wall brushed Key West, leaving much of the southernmost city in the continental United States under 3 to 5 feet of water.

Islands closer to the mainland took on even more water, with some swamped by a 5- to 8-foot storm surge. (Watch one woman ride the storm out -- 3:45)

The airport in Key West was closed by flooding, with a hospital also shut down and a fire station damaged. A "significant" number of Florida hospitals sustained damage, said state Health Secretary Alan Levine.

Wilma was the eighth hurricane to hit the state in 15 months, and officials said they were concerned that thousands of people ignored a mandatory evacuation order in the Florida Keys.

On Monday, some Keys residents questioned their decisions to remain home. (Full story)

"What we're dealing with is hurricane fatigue," said West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, noting the storm downed many trees in her city.

"Power's out in the entire county," she said. "We're getting reports of roofs and window damage, some collapsed buildings."

Despite warnings from officials, some residents said they were caught off guard by the storm's strength.

"They were in shock because it happened so quickly and the winds came in so strong," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democrat who represents parts of Broward and Dade counties.

"I think a lot of people were a little under-prepared for the intensity," said Fort Lauderdale resident Wingate Payne. "We were certainly warned."

Payne said he "lost a lot of trees" and at the height of the storm "was being pelted by grapefruit and oranges."

He said windows were blown out of a high-rise building nearby and that, by Monday afternoon, he could hear chainsaws as the cleanup effort got under way.

Just south of Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood Mayor Mara Guilianti said hundreds and possibly thousands of trees were down, blocking streets and snapping power lines.

"I've never seen it like this," she said.

Havana rocked

Wilma flooded parts of Havana, Cuba, after its eye wall passed over the island nation. (Watch Havana wrestle with its worst storm in years -- 1:54)

Most of the downtown and central sections of the capital was under water at one point -- up to 6 feet deep in some places -- and crews rescued people from windows and rooftops. (Full story)

Although nearly 500,000 people were evacuated from the country's western tip, evacuation orders for the capital weren't issued until after midnight while many people were sleeping.

The ground in western Cuba was already saturated from days of rain that began when Wilma passed to the south on its way to Mexico, where it pounded the Yucatan Peninsula for two days.

Four deaths were blamed on the storm in Mexico. President Vicente Fox, who toured the region Monday, said the airport in Cancun will likely reopen Tuesday and that all of the 20,000 international tourists in the area should be able to depart in six to 10 days. (Watch how it may be a while before Cancun returns to normal -- 2:01)

CNN's Chad Myers, Miles O'Brien, Gary Tuchman, Anderson Cooper, John Zarrella, Allan Chernoff, Lucia Newman and Jason Carroll contributed to this report.