MIAMI, Sept 6 (AFP) - Tropical storm Frances killed two people in Florida and knocked out power for three million people, authorities said Monday, as a new hurricane gathered force in the Atlantic.
The storm left thousands of fallen trees, smashed traffic lights and downed power cables. Some three million people were without power early Monday, a spokesman for the Florida Emergency Operations Center said.
The two people were killed in Gainesville in north-central Florida on Sunday after the hurricane had already killed two in the Bahamas.
A man died when he lost control of his car and hit a tree, and a woman was killed when an oak tree fell on her mobile home, Captain Beth Hardee of Alachua County Fire and Rescue said.
Gainesville was still under driving rain and high gusting wind early Monday, some 22 hours after the storm first entered the area, Hardee said.
"I`ve lived in Florida all my life and I`ve never experienced a storm like this," she said.
The remnants of the eye of Frances moved off Florida`s west coast, but experts said it could build up strength again over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
It could regain hurricane strength before making landfall on Florida`s northern Gulf coast late Monday, the National Hurricane Center said, warning that isolated tornadoes could strike in Florida and neighboring Georgia and Alabama.
Though remarkable for its size and duration, the storm caused less structural damage than expected. But Florida, which is barely recovering from the devastation wrought last month by Hurricane Charley, was warily eyeing yet another hurricane on the far horizon.
Hurricane Ivan, a dangerous Category 4 storm packing maximum sustained winds of nearly 215 kilometers (135 miles) per hour, was 1,000 kilometers (615 miles) away, but long-term forecasts put it dangerously close to the US state by the end of the week.
Early Monday, Ivan southeast of Barbados, which issued a hurricane watch.
As Ivan headed toward the Caribbean windward islands, Frances regrouped above the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with forecasters warning it could regain hurricane strength.
The first emergency crews, including national guard members, were deployed to affected areas Sunday as the tail of the huge hurricane was still lashing the coast with sheets of rain and fierce gusts of wind.
Power company workers struggled to restore electricity. Crews also started removing uprooted trees and smashed traffic lights from the busiest roads, but some streets remained blocked off by debris.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush was expected to tour the affected area, after President George W. Bush -- his brother -- declared a "major disaster" in the five worst-hit Florida counties.
In Miami, life started getting back to normal, with residents returning to their homes from the shelters where they had hunkered down. The international airport slowly resumed operations.
While fuel shortages still affected parts of the state, a number of gasoline stations reopened on Sunday, and traffic picked up on the highways.
But on the west coast of Florida, strong winds prompted authorities to shut down the Tampa International and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International airports.