Hurricane Keeps Up Strength as It Tears Through Florida

NAPLES, Fla., Oct. 24 - Hurricane Wilma lashed the southwest coast of Florida with 125-mile an hour winds today, causing heavy flooding and power outages as it ripped through the Florida peninsula, leaving downed power lines and other destruction in its wake.

At least one death in Florida was blamed on the storm, The Associated Press reported.

By this afternoon, the winds had slowed, modestly, to about 105 miles per hour, leading Wilma to be downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 2 storm about two-and-a-half hours after it made landfall. By 1 p.m., the storm was about 65 miles northeast of West Palm Beach, moving northeast at 25 miles per hour. "Some continued weakening is likely as Wilma crosses the southern Florida peninsula today," the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory earlier. "On this track, the center will emerge off the east coast of the southern Florida peninsula and move into the Atlantic later today."