NAPLES, Fla. — Hurricane Wilma pounded its way across Florida on Monday, killing at least three people and causing widespread flooding, power outages and property damage.
The storm moved with fierce speed, making landfall on Florida's west coast about 6:30 a.m. at Cape Romano, a deserted area south of Marco Island. Within six hours, Wilma had traversed the state, exiting near Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast.
The Panhandle was the only part of Florida spared the effects of the record-tying 21st storm of the 2005 hurricane season.
With sustained winds of 125 mph, Wilma was a Category 3 hurricane at landfall; the storm dropped to a Category 2 as it crossed the state, then intensified into a Category 3 as it headed northward into the Atlantic.
By midafternoon, rain had stopped falling along Florida's east coast.
Preliminary estimates put damage from Wilma between $4 billion and $10 billion. More than 2 million homes were without power Monday, said R. David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. About 36,000 people had sought refuge in 124 shelters across the state.
But the major concern was for those who had ignored days of warnings about Wilma and decided to ride out the storm. Paulison said disaster teams were especially worried about those who had stayed in their mobile homes.
Officials at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wilma's furious pace as it crossed Florida was not surprising, given that the storm had ballooned from a tropical depression to the strongest hurricane on record in less than four days.
President Bush on Monday authorized a major disaster declaration for the state, making federal aid immediately available in most of Florida. Wilma was the eighth hurricane to hit the state in 13 months.
"We're tired of hurricanes, I can tell you that," Paulison said.
Emergency officials said that in the Florida Keys, about 90% of residents had refused to evacuate.
Seawater pushed by Wilma's winds had swamped much of the Keys, local officials said Monday. The flooding appeared to be the worst in years.
"Currently in the Lower Keys, we're experiencing severe flooding. We're still having storm surge as we speak," Greg Artman, a Monroe County emergency operations spokesman, said early Monday.
Power was out Monday to the entire island chain, Artman said. U.S. 1 -- the Overseas Highway and the only link with mainland Florida -- was impassable in two places.
