NAPLES - Hurricane Wilma knifed throughFlorida with winds up to 125 mph Monday, shattering windows inskyscrapers, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to 3.2million customers, with still a month left to go in the busiestAtlantic storm season on record.

At least five people were killed in Florida, bringing the deathtoll from the storm's march through the tropics to 24.

After a slow, weeklong journey that saw it pound Mexico'sYucatan Peninsula for two days, Wilma made a mercifully swiftseven-hour dash across lower Florida, from its southwestern cornerto heavily populated Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach onthe Atlantic coast.

"We have been huddled in the living room trying to stay awayfrom the windows. It got pretty violent there for a while," said25-year-old Eddie Kenny, who was at his parents' home in Plantationnear Fort Lauderdale. "We have trees down all over the place andtwo fences have been totally demolished, crushed, gone."

The 21st storm of the 2005 season - and the eighth hurricane tohit Florida in 15 months - howled ashore around daybreak just southof Marco Island as a Category 3, cutting electricity to the entireFlorida Keys. A tidal surge of up to 9 feet swamped parts of KeyWest in chest-high water, and U.S. 1, the only highway to themainland, was flooded.

"A bunch of us that are the old-time Key Westers are kind ofwaking up this morning, going, `Well, maybe I should have paid alittle more attention,"' said restaurant owner Amy Culver-Aversa,among the 90 percent of Key West residents who chose to ignore thefourth mandatory evacuation order this year.

As it moved across the state, Wilma weakened to a Category 2storm with winds of 105 mph. But it was still powerful enough toflatten trees, break water mains, litter the streets withbillboards, turn debris into missiles and light up the sky with theblue-green flash of popping power transformers.

Officials said it was the most damaging storm to hit the FortLauderdale since 1950.

The storm's reach was so great that it left homes and businesseswithout power as far north as Daytona Beach, an eight-hour drivenorth from Key West. A tornado spun off by the storm damaged anapartment complex near Melbourne on the east coast, 200 miles fromwhere Wilma came ashore.

By early afternoon, Wilma had swirled out into the openAtlantic, back up to 115-mph Category 3 strength but on a courseunlikely to have much effect on the East Coast. Forecasters said itwould stay well offshore.

The insurance industry estimated the insured losses in Floridaat anywhere from $2 billion to $9 billion.

In Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Miami Beach, countless windowswere blown out of high-rises. Along downtown Miami's BrickellAvenue, broken glass from skyscrapers littered streets andsidewalks. Broken water mains in the Fort Lauderdale area promptedadvisories to boil water, and a ruptured main in downtown Miamisprayed water 15 feet in the air.

The Miami police department building lost some letters on itssign.

"It was a wild and crazy night," Lt. Bill Schwartz said."This building, built in 1976, shook like it was 1876."

In Weston, near Fort Lauderdale, Kim DuBois sat in her darkenedhouse with her two children and husband, with the only light comingfrom the battery-powered pumpkin lantern they bought for Halloween.

"I could hear tiles coming off the roof," she said. "Thereare trees on cars and flooding at the end of our street."

In the snowbird enclave Marco Island, where only about 3,000 ofthe 15,000 residents were believed to have stayed for the storm,the streets were littered with damaged street signs, roofingshingles, awnings and fences.

The storm impressed even amateur hurricane chaser JoshMorgerman. A marketing executive from Los Angeles, Morgerman flewto Tampa on Saturday to meet the storm, left Naples as the eyepassed and drove to Everglades City.

"It was very serene and there were birds flying," a wet andshivering Morgerman said. "And then when we got here and got outof the car, it was like a rocket went off."

A man in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs died when atree fell on him. Another man in rural Collier County died when hisroof collapsed on him or a tree fell on his roof. In Palm BeachCounty, a man went to move his van and was killed when debrissmashed him into the windshield. An 83-year-old St. Johns Countywoman died in a weekend car crash while evacuating. A man inCollier County had a fatal heart attack while walking in the storm.

Wilma also killed at least six people in Mexico and 13 others inJamaica and Haiti as it made is way across the Caribbean.

In Cuba, rescuers used scuba gear, inflatable rafts andamphibious vehicles to pull nearly 250 people from their floodedhomes in Havana after Wilma sent huge waves crashing into thecapital city and swamped neighborhoods up to four blocks inlandwith 3 feet of water.

In Cancun, Mexico, troops and federal police moved in to controllooting at stores and shopping centers ripped open by thehurricane, and hunger and frustration mounted among Mexicans andstranded tourists. President Vicente Fox announced plans to startevacuating some 30,000 frazzled tourists.

Wilma's arrival in Florida came five days after it astoundedforecasters with terrifying Category 5 winds of 175 mph. At onepoint, it was the most intense storm - as measured by internalbarometric pressure - on record in the Atlantic basin.

Wilma shared space in the Atlantic with Tropical DepressionAlpha, which became the record-breaking 22nd named storm of the2005 season. Alpha, which drenched Haiti and the Dominican Republicon Sunday, was not considered a threat to the United States.

President Bush, bitterly criticized for a sluggish response toHurricane Katrina, signed a disaster declaration forhurricane-damaged areas and promised swift action to help Wilma'svictims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was prepared tosend in dozens of military helicopters and 13.2 millionready-to-eat meals.

"We have prepositioned food, medicine, communicationsequipment, urban search-and-rescue teams," he said. "We will workclosely with local and state authorities to respond to thishurricane."

National Guard units airlifted 12 patients from a Key Westhospital, and other units were prepared to deliver food, water andother supplies to the Keys.

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