KEY WEST, Fla. — The weekend after Hurricane Wilma swamped most of this tropical island city with an average of 4 feet of seawater, the party was on again for tourists in downtown Key West.
Sloppy Joe's bar was packed by Saturday night, dancers at Victoria's, a disco, had difficulty maneuvering on the jammed floor, and some enterprising shops had already begun selling "I Survived Wilma" T-shirts.
Beyond the main tourist boulevards, however, the scene was different. Along Flagler Avenue and other residential streets outside Old Town, curbs were piled with the sodden, damaged contents of inundated homes.
At Chicken Moyer's home, friends came by to help the 55-year-old bartender get her Jeep Wrangler running. Wilma's waters had been waist-high on the street where Moyer lives, ruining her stove and refrigerator and immersing two mopeds.
"A mechanic told us to hose off the underneath, change out the fluids and the filters, and give it a try," said Vicky Gill, 51, a friend of Moyer's who is also a bartender. The chums were still at work on the Jeep when a visitor left.
Wilma was not the Big One, the catastrophic major hurricane that residents throughout the Florida Keys dread, but it was the most damaging storm to hit this island since 1919, local authorities said.
Three times this year, and three times in the 2004 hurricane season, tourists -- Key West's No. 1 source of revenue -- have been ordered to evacuate, said Michael Haskins, a public information officer for the city.
This year alone, hurricane scares wiped out the most lucrative events on the tourism calendar, the Caribbean-themed Goombay! Festival and Fantasy Fest, a sort of extended Halloween party for adults.
As visitors fled or canceled bookings by the thousands, estimated losses reached $133 million.
"Economically, what we lost is devastating and can't be recouped," said Julie Fondriest, owner of the Lighthouse Court, a 40-room guesthouse in Key West's Old Town. "We've got an empty hotel, and we're trying to get back into the swing of things. There are huge bills to pay, and our employees want to get paid."
So much storm surge sloshed into the southernmost municipality in the continental United States from Hurricane Wilma, which hit Oct. 24, that 70% of the homes in Key West might need new drywall, Mayor Morgan McPherson said, citing a preliminary survey of storm damage. Carpeting, beds, furniture and thousands of automobiles, refrigerators and other appliances were soaked in saltwater and might have been ruined.
