WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AFP) - Hurricane Jeanne battered southeastern Florida for hours, tearing off roofs and felling trees and power lines after slamming ashore at the same spot Frances did three weeks ago.
The fourth hurricane to pummel the southeastern state in six weeks, Jeanne knocked out power to over a million people along the Atlantic coast. Numerous telephone outages also were reported.
The ferocious winds that started lashing the coast Saturday evening reportedly overturned several vehicles and blew a car off a bridge.
The eye of the hurricane made landfall just before midnight (0400 GMT Sunday) at Hutchinson Island, 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of Palm Beach.
It then headed inland and weakened one notch from a category three hurricane.
But authorities warned the storm-weary southeastern US state was not out of the woods yet, issuing a hurricane warning for coastal areas of western Florida that were expected to get hit in the afternoon.
A deceptive calm fell over some areas as the eye of the storm moved inland while communities just kilometers (miles) away were whipped by sideways driving rain and 160-kilometer (100-mile) per-hour wind gusts.
The fierce hurricane, which packed winds of 193 kilometers (120 miles) per hour at landfall, tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines, which in some cases had just been repaired after the passage of the last ferocious storm.
Eerie green flashes lit up the night sky at intervals as transformers blew out, cutting electricity for yet more residents of the storm-weary state.
Frantic callers telephoned radio stations and emergency services to say their houses were coming apart, while hundreds of thousands of people in southern Florida yet again lost power, leaving them to sweat out the storm in steamy heat.
Authorities waited for winds to abate and daylight to arrive to assess the damage wrought by Frances, the same storm that last week devastated northern Haiti, leaving some 1,300 people confirmed dead and hundreds more missing and feared dead.
Forecasters warned of tornadoes and said the swirling northern edge of the eye of the storm had pushed four to seven feet (1.2 to 2.1 meters) of ocean water onto land as torrential rain poured yet more water onto already saturated ground.
Three million people had been told to evacuate before the storm bore down on southern Florida, where emergency crews have been struggling to repair the damage wrought by the earlier, deadly hurricanes.
Early indications suggested that faster, fiercer Jeanne was dealing a bigger blow to Florida than did Frances.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush asked the US president -- his brother George W. Bush -- to declare the state a disaster zone for the fourth time in six weeks to "help us expedite additional support."
Police imposed overnight curfews in several evacuated areas for safety reasons and to prevent looting.
Many residents had not had time to repair their homes damaged by Frances, and some had used canvas or plastic sheeting to replace roofs torn off by that storm.
"I'm afraid my home will be gone by morning," said David Larkin, who lives in a trailer with his girl-friend, two roommates and their two babies. The group all evacuated to a nearby hotel, where nervous guests slept in corridors, fearing the winds would blow out already leaking windows.
His immediate neighbors, he said, had opted to ride out the storm in their fragile mobile home.
"I can only imagine what they are going through," he said. "Being in a mobile home during a hurricane is the most awful thing. The noise is like a freight train crashing down on you," said Larkin, 30.
Forecasters for their part were awed by the number of powerful storms making landfall this hurricane season, which lasts from June to November.
"It's unbelievable. This year is going to be one to tell your grandchildren about," said Max Mayfield, director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Ivan last week killed more than 130 people in the eastern United States and Caribbean nations. Before that, hurricanes Charley and Frances killed dozens and destroyed thousands of homes after slamming into Florida's coasts.