Hurricane lashes Florida

HURRICANE Frances whipped off roofs, felled trees and cut power to about 4 million people in Florida yesterday as the huge and powerful storm lumbered over the state with ferocious winds and sheets of rain.

The hurricane was so large and slow-moving that its western outer edges had begun arriving on the east coast on Saturday morning and by yesterday morning its eastern edges were still pounding the coast from which 2.5 million people had been told to flee.

Local television reported one shelter resident died.