Tropical Storm Frances killed two as it crossed Florida, authorities said early on Monday, as yet another hurricane loomed in the far distance.
The deaths occurred on Sunday in the city of Gainesville in north-central Florida, 386km north-west of Stuart, which lies on the state’s hard-hit Atlantic coast.
A man died when he lost control of his car and hit a tree, and a woman was killed when an oak tree fell on her mobile home, Captain Beth Hardee of Alachua County Fire and Rescue said.
Their deaths bring the total storm toll to four thus far. Two people died in the Bahamas when Hurricane Frances battered the Atlantic island chain for more than 30 hours on Thursday and Friday.
Gainesville was still under driving rain and high gusting wind early on Monday, about 22 hours after the storm first entered the area, Hardee said.
”I’ve lived in Florida all my life and I’ve never experienced a storm like this,” she said.
The remnants of the eye of Frances have moved off Florida’s west coast, but ”it’s trying to reform. It could build up strength again” over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Frances, which was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday, was over the Gulf of Mexico and heading toward the Florida panhandle at 6am local time on Monday, forecasters said.
A hurricane warning remained in effect for Florida’s north-west Gulf coast, and the National Hurricane Centre warned that isolated tornadoes could appear in northern Florida and neighbouring Georgia state.
Hundreds of fallen trees, smashed traffic lights and downed power cables were left in the storm’s wake and about two million people were without power. Though remarkable for its size and duration, the storm caused remarkably little structural damage in Florida.
But Florida, which is barely recovering from the devastation wrought last month by Hurricane Charley, was warily eyeing yet another hurricane, which loomed on the far horizon.
Hurricane Ivan, a dangerous category-four storm packing maximum sustained winds of nearly 215kph, was 1 000km away, but long-term forecasts put it dangerously close to the United States by the end of the week.
Early on Monday, Ivan was 1 010km east-southeast of Barbados, which issued a hurricane watch.
As Ivan headed toward the Caribbean windward islands, Frances lost steam as it crossed Florida, though forecasters said it could regain hurricane strength over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.
The first emergency crews, including national guard members, were deployed to affected areas on Sunday as the tail of the huge hurricane was still lashing the coast with sheets of rain and fierce gusts of wind.
Power company workers were struggling to restore electricity to more than two million people — some radio stations put the figure as high as four million.
Crews also started removing uprooted trees and smashed traffic lights from the busiest roads, but some streets remained blocked off by debris.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush was expected to tour the affected area, after President George Bush — his brother — declared a ”major disaster” in the five worst-hit Florida counties.
In Miami, life started getting back to normal, with residents returning to their homes from the shelters where they had hunkered down and the international airport slowly resuming operations.
While fuel shortages still affected parts of the state, a number of gasoline stations reopened on Sunday afternoon, and traffic picked up on the highways.
But on the west coast of Florida, strong winds prompted authorities to shut down the Tampa International and St Petersburg-Clearwater International airports. — Sapa-AFP