More Rain Expected In Mexico

Hurricane Wilma drifted northward away from the Yucatan peninsula Sunday morning but furious winds and rain were still punishing Mexico's Caribbean coastline, where the storm killed at least seven people.

By 8 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Wilma had maximum sustained wind near 100 mph. It was centered about 90 miles north-northeast of Cancun, Mexico, or about 315 miles west-southwest of Key West, and was moving toward the northeast at about 8 mph.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted the storm would significantly pick up speed on Sunday and sideswipe Cuba before slamming into Florida.

CBS News hurricane expert Bryan Norcross says that a dip in the jet stream will push Wilma towards Florida, and the storm will

In Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, flood waters forced tourists in hotels and shelters to climb to higher floors on Saturday, as Wilma ripped away storefronts and peeled back roofs in Cancun.

On the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan coast, a Navy rescue mission saw three bodies floating down a flooding avenue and a fourth in a town square, bringing the death toll in Mexico from the storm to at least seven. Cozumel had been isolated since weathering the brunt of the storm on Friday

Authorities were not yet able to assess the full extent of storm damage as winds made surveillance by authorities almost impossible. Three feet of water blocked coastal highways.

After a lull, violent winds and rains slammed Cancun again after dark Saturday, pushing flood waters even higher.

Sunday could bring an additional 10 inches to 15 inches of rain to the already saturated Yucatan peninsula and western Cuba, the National Hurricane Center said.

On Saturday, the hurricane sent water surging over the narrow strip of sand housing Cancun's luxury hotels and raucous bars, joining the sea with the resort's alligator-infested lagoon.

Lobbies were gutted as waves from the open sea slammed into some low-lying hotels, Quintana Roo state Gov. Felix Gonzalez said.

Devastating winds and rains trapped tourists inside Cancun's school shelters, where CBS News producer Ben Ferguson reports the conditions are hellish.

"People were sleeping in desks, on top of desks and on the floor in the water. Several of our windows blew out. It was basically just 17 hours of in the dark — just completely soaking wet," reports Ferguson.

Cancun residents had ventured briefly from their hiding spots to survey the flooded, debris-filled streets as the eye of the storm passed the famous resort.

Downtown Cancun was littered with glass, tree trunks and cars up to their roofs in water. The front half of a Burger King had collapsed, and at least one gas station had its roof blown away.

Yucatan Gov. Patricio Patron told Formato 21 radio that one person was killed by a falling tree, but he offered no details. And in Playa del Carmen, two people died from injuries they sustained Friday when a gas tank exploded during the storm, Quintana Roo state officials said.

But aid workers expressed relief that suffering had not been worse.

Ricardo Portugal, director of the Mexican Red Cross in Cancun said "there were not a great number of injuries" given the strength of the hurricane.

The storm earlier killed 13 people in Jamaica and Haiti.

Quintana Roo State Civil Protection Director Maj. Jose Nemecio said a few emergency crews were able to begin distributing emergency supplies in Playa del Carmen, to the south of Cancun, where screaming winds had flattened wood-and-tarpaper houses.

Rescue efforts were suspended on Cozumel because of severe weather on the island, where the storm washed away a jetty and did heavy damage to Naval facilities.

In Cancun, the wind ripped part of the ceiling off a gymnasium-turned-shelter, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people late Friday. Stacy Presley, a 22-year-old honeymooner from Milwaukee, was among them.

She and 120 others were moved to a kindergarten where they had to sleep on miniature desks nearly submerged in rising flood waters. There was no food.

She and her husband fled when the winds died down.

"There were people getting sick from the urine on the floor," she said. "We had to do something, so we took off. We were running through flooded streets, passing downed power lines."

She ended up at another school sheltering more than 2,000 people. It had mats to sleep on, emergency officials and supplies.

Nearby, Loni Steingraph, 40, of Austin, Texas, praised the shelter, saying: "I booked a four-star hotel, I didn't know it would include a four-star shelter too."

Benjamin Rodriguez, 49, of Cleveland, spent the night in a classroom with his 11-month-old granddaughter. He and several others had to lean against a door that the wind kept blowing open.

"I feel for the citizens here because we get to go home eventually," said Rodriguez, who came with 32 family members for his son's wedding. "They have to stay and rebuild everything that was destroyed."

Well inland, Juan Carlos Fernandez, a 39-year-old clothing designer, said the winds were so strong that he and two friends shuttered themselves in a closet.

"Everything went flying. The electric garage door went flying," he said. "I'm afraid — very, very afraid."

President Vicente Fox planned to travel to the affected region on Sunday.

The army and navy prepared to move in emergency supplies, including food, water, medicine and roofing. Fox said they will be sent in as soon as possible.

The U.S. Embassy was sending consular officials to shelters Sunday, an effort to help people prepare for the evacuation of some 30,000 tourists after the storm. The U.S. government also offered to donate $200,000 in aid.

Even as it battered Mexico, Wilma's outer bands pounded western Cuba, where the government evacuated more than 500,000 people, reports CBS News' Portia Siegelbaum. Forecasters said Wilma could bring more than 3 feet of rain to parts of Cuba.

"They take them to larger towns more to the center of the province, or even, if it's necessary, they bring them as far toward the east as the capital," Siegelbaum reports from Havana.

A tornado that spun off from the storm flattened 20 homes and several tobacco-curing huts in Cuba as well.

The twister demolished the wooden home of Caridad Garcia, who huddled with her family in the bathroom, the only room left standing. "It sounded like the world was coming to an end," said Garcia, 58.