Hurricane Drenches Florida and Leaves Seven Dead

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/27/national/27storm.html

MIAMI, Aug. 26 - Hurricane Katrina churned through the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, increasing its strength and threatening the Florida Panhandle and neighboring states, after cutting a drenching swath through southern Florida and leaving seven dead.

But just scattered patches of serious property damage were reported.


Though barely more than a tropical storm, Hurricane Katrina inundated parts of Miami-Dade County on Friday. The hurricane was gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, and forecasters feared for the Florida Panhandle.


The howling winds of the hurricane rose to more than 100 miles an hour in the gulf in the afternoon, and officials at the National Hurricane Center here said they could further intensify to as much as 150 miles an hour, making the storm a major juggernaut.

"It could be an extremely dangerous system," said Christopher Sisko, a meteorologist at the hurricane center, where other weather experts said it would most likely become a stronger, Category 4, storm.

Hurricane Katrina crossed the beach near Hallandale in Broward County, north of here, early Thursday night as a relatively mild, wet and somewhat underestimated storm that just barely qualified for hurricane status, Category 1, with winds about 80 miles an hour.



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