Bush visits South Florida, insists `life will get back to normal'.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Robert Nolin and Jean-Paul Renaud

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Offering words of encouragement and the promise of "ships coming in" with gas, President Bush toured fuel-thirsty South Florida on Thursday, meeting with local dignitaries and a storm-stunned public as the area lurched uncertainly toward recovery.

"Soon, more and more houses will have their electricity back on and life will get back to normal," Bush told a crowd of nearly 100 waiting at a lunch distribution center in Pompano Beach. "In the meantime, the federal government, working with the state and local government, is responding as best as we possibly can."

The presidential visit, lasting about three hours and including a stop at the National Hurricane Center west of Miami, came as local governments struggled to cope with dwindling fuel supplies, and weary residents waited in seemingly endless lines for water, food, ice and gas. Earlier Thursday, one man died and nine others, including three firefighters, were hospitalized from carbon monoxide fumes spewed by a generator in a Deerfield Beach home.

While promising fresh supplies of ship-borne fuel, Bush acknowledged the area's problem wasn't a lack of gasoline but rather the electrical power to...

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