Hurricane Wilma made landfall as a Category 3 system near Key West, and later near Everglades City, Florida On October 24, 2005. Wilma had earlier made landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 4 system. Wilma, the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, reached a low pressure of 26.04 inches, surpassing the previous Atlantic record holder of Gilbert. Wilma, the first Atlantic storm to use the letter “W” formed as a Tropical Depression southwest of Jamaica on October 15th, becoming a hurricane on October 18th and later becoming the 5th Category 5 hurricane of the season. Wilma produced a storm surge of 4’ to 8’, flooded portions of the Keys dropped 10 tornadoes over Florida and yielded 3” to 7” of rain across Florida. Wilma directly was attributed to 5 deaths in Florida, knocked power out to 98 percent of South Florida and produced an estimated $12.2 billion in damage.
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