Katrina Death Toll Lowered To Six

Flooded streets resembled canals, sailboats sat on the sand and a highway overpass lay in ruin Friday in the hours after Hurricane Katrina plodded across South Florida.

The storm's wind then zoomed to 100 mph as Katrina moved over the Gulf of Mexico.

Six people were killed, and more than a million homes and businesses lost power after the storm crashed ashore late Thursday. Insured damage for the region could top out at $600 million, a company said.

Authorities had said the toll was seven, but revised it to six after saying one death was not storm-related. The toll includes three people killed by falling trees and two boaters who tried to ride out the storm in their crafts.

A family of five missing since they left the Keys early Thursday in a 24-foot boat were rescued Friday off Everglades City, the Coast Guard said. Their medical conditions were not immediately known.

Katrina reached Category 2 status Friday morning, and forecasters said it could become a major hurricane — a Category 3, with top sustained winds above 110 mph — by Saturday. It was expected to turn north and hit the Gulf Coast between Florida and Louisiana early next week.

Katrina's first Florida land strike came Thursday night along the Miami-Dade and Broward county line.

Rain fell in horizontal sheets, seas were estimated at 15 feet and sustained wind hit 80 mph, with gusts reaching 92 mph. Up to 11½ inches of rain fell on Miami-Dade County. Crews scrambled to clear roads and repair utility lines around the region.

Hardened by enduring four sizeable hurricanes last year, many Florida residents scoffed at the tropical storm-turned light hurricane, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. But when it

"This place went bananas last night," said John Vazquez, 62, who rode out the storm in his oceanfront condominium in Hallandale Beach.

Carolyne and Carter McHyman, also living on the oceanfront, said heavy downpours pelted their windows after the eye passed.

"It's been horrible," Carolyne McHyman said. "Basically all our windows are leaking. We just keep mopping up and taping the windows, mopping up and taping again."

Katrina briefly weakened into a tropical storm over land, but rejuvenated over the gulf's warm waters to become a hurricane again early Friday. At 2 p.m. EDT, it was centered about 60 miles west-northwest of Key West, moving west-southwest at 8 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending 25 miles.

A dozen petroleum production platforms and eight drilling rigs in the Gulf were evacuated Friday, but the flow of oil and natural gas was uninterrupted, the federal Minerals Management Service reported.

Katrina was expected to make a gradual westward turn by Saturday and then move north, and Gov. Jeb Bush urged residents of the Panhandle and northwestern Florida — areas hit by Hurricane Ivan last year and Hurricane Dennis this year — to make preparations. He said he has asked for federal disaster assistance for Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

"Maybe we can get rid of the phrase 'minimal hurricane,"' state meteorologist Ben Nelson said. "There is no such thing as a minimal hurricane."

The storm had hindered the Coast Guard's search for Edward and Tina Larsen and their children, ages 17, 14 and 4, but the family was hoisted to safety and taken to Naples after being spotted by a Coast Guard helicopter.

Damage was visible up and down the coast. But the region's insured losses will probably remain below $600 million, according to AIR Worldwide, a risk modeling company.

Roofs came off mobile homes in Davie, and dozens of families in Key Biscayne were forced to evacuate homes swamped in 3 feet of water.

Longtime Key Biscayne resident Raul Vidal said water reached halfway up his driveway and he had minor flooding through a leaky window, but no major damage.

"This is just an inconvenience. It's nature's way of doing landscaping for you — cleaning up trees that are overgrown," the 53-year-old banker said.

Sailboats washed up onto the Key Biscayne beach. Most lay tipped on their sides, some with ripped sails flapping in the wind. About 10 boats at the Coconut Grove marina had been pulled from their moorings and thrown on the rocks.

In the Keys, where rain totals could reach 20 inches, a tornado damaged a hangar and airplanes at the Marathon airport, and more than a dozen small planes were damaged at an executive airport southwest of downtown Miami, officials said.

An overpass under construction in Miami-Dade County collapsed onto a main east-west thoroughfare, closing it for 20 blocks.

Other areas looked dismal as well; 1.1 million Floridians lost power during the storm, Strassmann reports. More than 2,000 people were in shelters Friday, including more than 1,000 in Broward.

Miami's and Fort Lauderdale's main airports reopened for limited flights Friday, a day after closing ahead of the storm.

Katrina, which formed Wednesday over the Bahamas, was the second hurricane to strike Florida this year and the first to make a direct hit on Broward County since a destructive Category 4 hurricane in 1947.

Four hurricanes hit Florida last year, causing an estimated $46 billion in damage across the country.

Katrina is the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. That's seven more than typically have formed by now in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the National Weather Service said. The season ends Nov. 30.