Wilma strengthened back to a major Category 3 hurricane as it raced toward Florida on Sunday after devastating Mexico?s Caribbean resorts with floods and winds that smashed thousands of homes and killed seven people. While Wilma?s outer fringes began to pelt Florida, dazed tourists waded through a knee-deep flood in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun to seek food and water after three nights in shelters without electricity. At one point the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic basin, Wilma weakened as it hammered Mexico?s Yucatan Peninsula for three days, but strengthened again to carry 115- mph (185-kph) winds toward the Florida Keys, where storm-weary residents largely ignored evacuation orders.

?We?re just hoping that the waters don?t rise and the bridges don?t fail,? said Key West real estate agent Suzanne Washburn. Emergency managers estimated no more than 7 percent of the Keys? 80,000 residents evacuated, despite fears they could be stranded if Wilma washed out parts of the Overseas Highway, the only road connecting the 110-mile (175-km) island chain to mainland Florida. The last city evacuation bus left Key West on Sunday morning with only the driver and one passenger. ?All I can tell people in the Keys who are trying to ride this one out is one of these days your luck is going to run out,? said Craig Fugate, Florida?s director of emergency management.

At 11 p.m. on Sunday (0300 GMT on Monday), Wilma?s center was about 120 miles (195 km) west of Key West and moving northeast at 18 mph (30 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Squalls began to roll in and low-lying areas were flooded as Key West streets emptied with an overnight curfew. Wilma was expected to hit southwest Florida by daybreak and then ?take off like a rocket headed out over the Atlantic,? hurricane center Director Max Mayfield said. Wilma was a large and dangerous Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity and forecasters said it was unlikely to weaken until after it crossed over the southwest Florida coast.

Wilma could push a storm surge of up to 17 feet (5 metres) over southwest Florida. That would exceed the surge of last year?s Hurricane Charley, then the second costliest hurricane in US history with more than $15 billion in damage. Wilma was expected to race across southern Florida and over the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach area, the state?s most populous region with about 5 million people. Shelters opened and residents of mobile homes and low-lying areas were told to leave. US space agency NASA closed its Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coast of central Florida and told its 13,000 workers to stay home on Monday.

<B>Maya Rivieria battered</B>

Wilma did heavy damage in Mexico, where the howling winds and torrential rain gutted homes, hotels and stores all along the ?Maya Riviera,? a strip of tropical coastline that draws millions of tourists to its beaches, coral-filled seas and Mayan ruins. The resort city of Cancun lay gutted after Wilma blew out windows, tore through shops and left hotel lobbies knee-deep in water and strewn with glass, plaster and other debris. Cozumel island was severely flooded and battered beyond recognition. ?The sea has broken everything,? said Jose Mariscal, from Spain, staying in a hotel lobby with staff and their families.

Four people were killed on Cozumel, and three others on the mainland, making Wilma?s overall death toll at least 17 after mudslides killed 10 people in Haiti last week. In the Playa del Carmen resort, trees and electrical poles lay in the streets, and many buildings were damaged.

Western Cuba was buffeted by 86-mph (138-kph) wind gusts that howled through the empty streets of Havana, knocking down lampposts and smashing some windows out of tall buildings. The city?s 2 million inhabitants hunkered down in the dark, listening to battery-powered radios after authorities cut power to prevent electrical accidents.

Wilma?s outer bands dumped 17 inches (450 mm) of rain on the town of Manta in Pinar del Rio province in 24 hours, Cuba?s weather institute said. Television footage showed the fishing village of Guanimar on Cuba?s south coast submerged under 3 feet (metre) of floodwater. Cuban authorities evacuated half a million people before the storm. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has seen three of the fiercest storms on record ? Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. It became the most active season since records began 150 years ago when Tropical Storm Alpha formed on Saturday. Experts say the Atlantic has entered a period of heightened storm activity that could last 20 years. Wilma was the eighth hurricane to hit Florida in a little over 14 months.

<B>Laura MYERS</B>