Category 2 Hurricane Wilma churns toward Florida

KEY WEST, Fla. -- After crawling slowly through the Caribbean for several days, Hurricane Wilma pulled away from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula as a Category 2 storm and, forecasters said, began picking up speed "like a rocket" as it headed toward Florida with expected landfall Monday.\nBefore moving back out to sea, Wilma killed at least three people in Mexico and 13 people in Jamaica and Haiti.\nForecasters said Wilma would make landfall in Florida with winds of 105 mph or more, tornadoes and a surge of seawater that could flood the Keys and the state's southwest coast.\nThe southern half of the state was under a hurricane warning, and an estimated 160,000 people were told to evacuate, but many decided to stay.\nResidents of the low-lying Florida Keys island chain were believed to be the most vulnerable, yet only about 20 percent of the Keys' 78,000 residents fled, senior Monroe County Emergency Management Director Billy Wagner said.\n"If they don't get out of there, they're going to be in deep trouble," he said.\nWilma would mark Florida's eighth hurricane since August 2004 and the fourth time this year the Keys were ordered evacuated.\n"I cannot emphasize enough to the folks that live in the Florida Keys: A hurricane is coming," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "Perhaps people are saying, 'I'm going to hunker down.' They shouldn't do that. They should evacuate, and there's very little time left to do so."\nThe National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted Wilma would dramatically gain speed as it neared Florida and approach Category 3 strength before making landfall in the state's southwest corner.\n"It's really going to take off like a rocket," said Max Mayfield, director at the hurricane center. "It's going to start moving like 20 mph."\nAs Wilma crossed the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters said they saw no evidence of wind shear that they hoped would reduce the storm's intensity.\nIn the lull before the storm, islanders enjoyed sunshine Sunday morning. Some went boating, while about 100 parishioners in Key West attended Mass at a Catholic church where a grotto built in the 1920s is said to provide protection from dangerous storms.\nThe quiet would not last. Tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph were expected to begin lashing the state late Sunday, and the large core of the hurricane was forecast to slice across the peninsula Monday, speeding northeast at up to 25 mph.\nBecause the storm was expected to move so swiftly across Florida, residents of Atlantic coast cities such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale were likely to face hurricane-force winds nearly as strong as those on the Gulf Coast.\nGeorge Delgado of Miami was still covering the windows of his house with plywood Sunday. He said he waited until the last minute to make sure the hours of work were necessary.\n"I was hoping it would turn some other way," Delgado said.\nFlorida Gov. Jeb Bush said state officials expected widespread power outages and flooding. The National Guard was on alert, and state and federal officials had trucks of ice and food ready to deploy.\nThe Federal Emergency Management Agency was poised to send in military helicopters and 13.2 million ready-to-eat meals if needed, spokesman Butch Kinerney said.\n"We're ready for Wilma and, whatever the storm brings, we're set to go," Kinerney said.\nAt 5 p.m. Sunday, Wilma was centered about 210 miles west-southwest of Key West and moving northeast at about 14 mph. Hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph extended up to 85 miles from the center and winds blowing at tropical storm-force reached outward up to 230 miles, the hurricane center said.\nWeary forecasters also monitored Tropical Depression Alpha, which formed Saturday south off the Dominican Republic and was briefly a tropical storm, the record 22nd named storm for the Atlantic season. It was the first time the hurricane center exhausted the regular list of names and had to turn to the Greek alphabet.\nAlpha was not considered a threat to the United States.\nOn Florida's Gulf Coast, evacuation orders covered barrier islands and coastal areas in Collier and Lee counties, such as Fort Myers Beach, Marco Island, Sanibel and parts of Naples.