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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Miami Herald
Byline: Andres Viglucci
Aug. 27--Day 2 after Hurricane Katrina was a hot, muggy, soggy affair for hundreds of thousands of impatient South Floridians who hunted for ice and gasoline or sat home waiting for power to be restored, fallen trees to be cleared, and floodwaters to recede from groves and subdivisions.
Katrina, which cut a broad swath through Miami-Dade and Broward counties as a damaging Category 1 hurricane Thursday night, meanwhile gained strength Saturday as she churned north over the warm Gulf of Mexico.
By 4 p.m., Katrina was a Category 3 storm with sustained winds up to 115 mph. A hurricane watch stretched from Intracoastal City, La., to the Florida-Alabama border.
In South Florida, the number of storm fatalities rose to nine. Two people were found dead at home in Davie of what police believe was carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator running in the living room.
Life in many places gradually returned to normal. But for many South Floridians, the cry of the day was: "Where's FPL?"
So desperate for the benefits of electricity were some in Coral Gables that they crowded into the Starbucks on Miracle Mile, plugging laptops and cellphones into every available electrical outlet and soaking up the air conditioning.
Progress seemed agonizingly slow for the 736,000 Florida Power & Light customers in Broward and Miami-Dade who still lacked power Saturday evening, many of them facing the unappealing prospect of several more days without it. Hotel rooms were scarce in Miami-Dade and Broward on Saturday night as the heat and the...
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