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Frances kills six in Florida, Bahamas as new hurricane looms
MIAMI (AFP) Sep 07, 2004
Florida's highways were jammed as hundreds of thousands of people returned to their homes Monday after Hurricane Frances, which killed four people in the state and left about three million people without power.

Two more people were killed in the Bahamas.

Frances felled thousands of trees, tore roofs off houses, smashed traffic lights, downed power cables and left Florida facing a new multi-billion-dollar bill only weeks after Hurricane Charley killed more than 20 people and left more than 6.8 billion dollars of damage.

The coach of a top American football college team, Florida State University's Bobby Bowden, lost his 15-year-old grandson and his daughter's ex-husband when they were killed Sunday in a traffic accident on a wet road, near the state capital Tallahassee in the northwest.

Frances killed two other people in Gainesville in central Florida on Sunday. The hurricane has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

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.

Gainesville was still under driving rain and high gusting wind early Monday, some 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.

Suspected looters were arrested in Palm Beach, Orange and Indian River counties and there was also flooding in the Tampa region.

But hundreds of thousands of people returned to their homes in the Miami region after the hurricane had passed. A tropical storm warning was in effect for Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast late Monday.

The National Hurricane Center warned that isolated tornadoes could strike in Florida and neighboring Georgia and Alabama.

Munich Re, the world's leading reinsurer, said Frances caused between five and 15 billion dollars (4-12 billion euros) in damage. Florida authorities gave no immediate cost estimate.

Eqecat Inc, a US risk estimation firm, also said that the final cost could exceed 10 billion dollars.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's huge space shuttle assembly hangar suffered heavy damage that could imperil its plan to resume space flights in March 2005, officials said.

While Hurricane Charley caused 700,000 dollars worth of damage at the Kennedy Space Center, Frances' destruction could significantly surpass this figure, said Jim Kennedy, director of the facility near Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Sailors rescued 24 Cuban migrants stranded off the Bahamas on Sunday due to the hurricane, the US Coast Guard said.

Though remarkable for its size and duration, the storm caused less structural damage in the state than expected.

But Florida was warily eyeing yet another hurricane quickly moving on the far horizon.

Hurricane Ivan, packing maximum sustained winds of nearly 165 kilometers (105 miles) per hour, was 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Barbados, which, along with the Caribbean islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines and Grenada, was under a hurricane warning.

Long-term forecasts put Ivan dangerously close to Florida by the end of the week. The powerful storm could hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic around Thursday.

Power company workers struggled to restore electricity. Crews also started removing uprooted trees and smashed traffic lights from the busiest roads, but some streets remained blocked off by debris.

Thousands of people lined up for emergency rations of ice, water and food, while long lines were seen at the few pharmacies that were open.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush was expected to tour the affected area.

President George W. Bush -- Jeb Bush's brother -- declared a "major disaster" in the five worst-hit Florida counties and asked Congress to speed up consideration of a two-billion-dollar aid request for the state.

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