Residents, tourists stream out of Fla. Keys

KEY WEST, Fla. -- In an all-too-familiar drill, Floridians got out of town or boarded up their windows and stocked up on canned food Friday as Hurricane Ivan threatened the state with its third thrashing in a month.

Business owners in the Florida Keys faced another bad weekend as tourists and residents fleeing the storm crowded the lone highway that leads to the mainland.

Around the state, meanwhile, more than three-quarters of a million victims of last weekend's Hurricane Frances were still without electricity in the almost 90-degree heat and high humidity, and thousands had to cope with sewage backups in Palm Beach County.

Ivan is expected to arrive in the Keys on Monday, exactly a month after Hurricane Charley ripped across the state from the west. Fatigued residents covered windows with shutters and plywood.

Together, Charley and Frances killed at least 50 people in Florida and caused up to $20 billion in damage, making this season the state's worst since 1992. Florida has not been hit by three hurricanes in a single season since 1964.

Ivan, with winds of up to 145 mph Friday, left at least 33 people dead as it continued its march across the Caribbean. The hurricane, a Category 4 on a scale with 5 as the strongest, was expected to hit Jamaica late Friday or early today, then Cuba and the Keys.

Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson declared a public emergency and pleaded with the half million people considered in danger -- about one in five islanders -- to get to shelters.