Hurricane Wilma batters Mexican resorts, six dead

By Noel Randewich

CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Wilma blasted through Mexico's Caribbean resorts on Saturday, smashing homes and killing at least six people in a slow-moving rampage that put it on course to hit Florida next. 

Howling hurricane winds tore off roofs and uprooted trees for a third day running across the Yucatan peninsula. Thousands of glum tourists faced another night in sweltering shelters with no light or running water, eating food rations. 

Looters carry new electronic equipment from a store after Hurricane Wilma hit the resort town of Cancun in Mexico's state of Quintana Roo October 22, 2005. (REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar)

The long spit of white sand that draws planeloads of sun seekers to Cancun was under water. Luxury hotels were flooded up to knee-level and littered with debris after the normally tranquil sea off Quintana Roo state roared inland. 

"The structural damage is everywhere. And the winds are still strong," Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez said. 

As the rains and winds eased a little on Saturday evening, tourists and locals ventured out in search of food and water, and some took advantage of the chaos to loot. 

Dozens waded out of smashed stores clasping plasma TVs, fridges and bundles of clothes on hangers. Police fired shots into the water to try to scatter them. 

"It's a complete disaster. The city is totally destroyed," said restaurant worker Pablo Resendiz, picking his way through flooded streets that were cut off to cars by tangles of fallen power cables and other debris. 

Rescue workers paddled to flooded neighborhoods and plucked families from houses where the muddy water was chest-high. 

In one area, locals had spent a terrifying night, afraid that crocodiles from a nearby swamp would swim in with the water rushing into their homes. 

"It was a hellish nightmare. We thought the water was going to reach the second floor," said lawyer Oscar Trevino as his wife and four children were helped to safety. 

In a nearby house, a 4-year-old girl sat shivering and hungry on a soggy mattress perched on a kitchen counter and table where her bedraggled family spent the night. 

Wilma calmed down by evening to a Category 2 hurricane on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale, but winds were still 100 mph with higher gusts. It was expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico during the night. 

ANOTHER NIGHT IN SHELTERS 

The Yucatan peninsula, famous for its turquoise seas, white sand and Mayan ruins, has been lashed by Wilma since Thursday. 

Florida was next in line with Wilma due to hit by Monday. Authorities were taking no risks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and ordered mandatory evacuations, starting with 80,000 residents of the vulnerable Florida Keys. 

"Take this seriously. There will be flooding," Key West spokesman Michael Haskins told local radio. 

In Mexico, the coral-fringed island of Cozumel, popular with scuba divers, took the brunt of the storm on Friday. Many locals remained in shelters on Saturday, with winds still raging, power still out and no boat services running. 

"It's still going on, it's raining hard and the wind is blowing. I haven't left my house since Thursday afternoon," said Kathleen Martin Kopelman, owner of the Amigo's Bed and Breakfast, five blocks from the ocean on the island. 

Gonzalez said there were reports of two deaths on Cozumel. 

One person also died in Cancun when a gust of wind blew out a window, two were killed in the resort town of Playa del Carmen, farther south, when a gas tank exploded, and a man was killed in Yucatan state when a tree branch blew off and crushed him. 

Half-a-dozen flimsy homes were knocked down in Playa del Carmen and felled concrete pylons cut the highway to Cancun. A smashed small plane lay upside down on a flooded airstrip. 

As locals bailed out their homes with buckets, Mexican and foreign visitors waded through waist-high water, desperate for food and water. A German couple dragged their backpacks through the chalky water, searching for somewhere dry to sleep. 

Wilma was moving extremely slowly, raising hopes it will have weakened considerably before reaching Florida. 

Mexico is used to hurricanes but Wilma is one of the biggest and slowest-moving in years, dumping intense rain. It is also unusually big with a diameter of 500 miles. 

Thousands of stranded tourists prepared for another night huddled in dank, sweaty refuges but were glad to be safe. 

"We are very fortunate to be here. We were in a palm hut. I bet there is nothing left," said Scott Whitcher, 38, from San Francisco, washing in rain on a hotel balcony. 

Some 1,600 tourists in a gymnasium had been moved to safer locations just before the roof blew off, a city official said. 

Mudslides caused by Wilma killed 10 people in Haiti this week and Cuba was hit by drenching rains and tornadoes. 

This hurricane season has spawned three of the fiercest storms on record. Experts say the Atlantic has entered a period of heightened storm activity that could last for 20 years. 

(Additional reporting by Greg Brosnan in Playa del Carmen, Monica Medel in Mexico City, Michael Christie in Miami, Laura Myers in Key West and Anthony Boadle in Cuba)