The new request, totaling 7.1 billion dollars, came just one day after Floridians were hit by Hurricane Jeanne, their fourth major storm over the past six weeks.

The hurricane left at least six people dead and caused an estimated billions of dollars in damage, destroying homes, tearing off roofs, flooding streets and leaving one million people without power.

"These additional requests will support response and recovery effort to address the critical needs associated with the effects of Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne and other storms in southern and eastern states and other affected areas," Bush wrote in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

He urged lawmakers "to act expeditiously" and not to burden the supplemental budget bill with unrelated provisions, which usually significantly slow down congressional deliberations.

The request marks the third time since the beginning of the hurricane season the president went to Congress with requests of urgent assistance to Florida and other states that have suffered from the string of natural disasters.

Early this month, he signed into law a two-billion-dollar disaster relief package designed to help Florida residents in the wake of Hurricane Charley that ravaged the west coast of the peninsula.

On September 14, he sent to Capitol Hill yet another supplemental request totaling 3.1 billion to continue immediate assistance following Charley and Hurricane Frances that followed in its footsteps.

Congress has not yet acted on the second supplemental budget request.

Although the bulk of the latest request is earmarked for Florida, it will also benefit states like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where the recent storms have caused considerable damage as well.

Risk Management Solutions, a California-based risk management firm, estimated Sunday that insured losses from Hurricane Jeanne would range between four billion and eight billion dollars.

Florida's cumulative insured losses from all four recent hurricanes were expected to reach as much as 25 billion dollars, the company said.

According to the White House, financial assistance already provided to victims of Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan was nearing 300 million dollars.

Storm victims have also received over 136 million dollars for replacement of essential property not covered by insurance or other agencies, the figures show.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency now has more than 4,200 employees deployed to Florida, a key battleground state in the current election campaign.

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