Hurricane Wilma – the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean – weakened a bit yesterday as it prepared to slam into Mexico’s resort-filled Yucatan Peninsula today before turning toward hurricane-weary Florida and making landfall Sunday.
The Sunshine State ordered tourists to leave the Florida Keys on Wednesday but put off the mandatory evacuation of the 80,000 residents of the archipelago until today.
Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency yesterday, a day when Wilma lost a bit of its punch, with winds down to 145 mph from 175 the previous day.
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said Wilma may weaken further before hitting Florida. “The timing is certainly working in our favor,” he said.
Thanks to jet-stream winds, Wilma is expected to take an unconventional route to Florida, first slipping between the Yucatan and Cuba, making landfall near the popular resort of Cancun this morning, moving north into the Gulf of Mexico and then making an abrupt turn toward the orange groves.
The White House, stung by reaction to its slow response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, promised to stay on top of the situation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was positioning emergency materials in Jacksonville, Lakeland and Homestead.
Gov. Bush said the state had ample food, water and ice ready for hard-hit areas.
Wilma is this year’s 12th hurricane, tying a record set in 1969. The season has six weeks left and has already spawned three of the most intense hurricanes on record. Many scientists believe the heightened storm intensity is linked to global warming.
Tourists throughout the Caribbean got a little taste yesterday of what Florida is hoping to avoid. Thousands fled hotels from Honduras to Cuba, taking shelter from winds and rain that killed 10 people in Haiti earlier in the week.
“We are trying to stay calm, but we are freaking out inside,” said Kerry Rieth of Pennsylvania, on vacation with her fiancé in Cancun. With Post Wire Services