US hurricanes could cost up to €20bn

America's shellshocked southern coastal states began to clean up after their third hurricane pummelling in five weeks, which could cost a total of up to $20bn (€16.4bn).

Residents of Florida and Alabaman are looking at the crumbled condos and shattered beach homes along their coast and wondering how many months it would take for life to get back to normal.

The hurricanes have left virtually all of Florida a disaster area, and the recovery from Ivan has been complicated by widespread power outages, washed-out roads and bridges, and ongoing gas shortages.

In some areas, emergency workers had to be flown in by helicopters, and authorities said it could take weeks to restore water, power and sewer services in parts of the hard-hit Panhandle.

“You’ve got to take the bad with the good,” said 42-year-old Tracie Stitt, who stood in a pile of cinderblock and tile that once was the home she and her husband shared with her in-laws near Perdido Bay.

“If you live in California it’d be earthquakes, if you live in Kansas it’d be tornadoes, up north it’s snowstorms,” she said yesterday. “There’s not a perfect place on earth. You’ve just got to take your losses and pray and go on.”

Ivan was the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Floyd in 1999. In all, Ivan was blamed for 70 deaths in the Caribbean and at least 38 in the US, 14 of them in Florida.

On the Alabama coast, the floodwaters of Ivan that turned beach playgrounds into huge lakes began to recede, revealing widespread wreckage. At Gulf Shores, some homes were swept over a beach road littered with thousands of air conditioning units, boards and roofing shingles.

“For a lot of people it will be a real struggle to be ready before Memorial Day,” Mayor David Bodenhamer said, referring to the US holiday in late May.

Gov Bob Riley, who toured the area yesterday, said he was ”absolutely shocked at the devastation” but promised a swift, full cleanup and recovery.

More than 750,000 Alabama homes and businesses remained without power yesterday afternoon, down from the state record 1.1 million power outages reported after Ivan roared through the state on Thursday.

In Florida, Ivan struck at a time when the state is still reeling from Hurricanes Charley and Frances. Charley ravaged the state’s west coast five weeks ago, while Frances pounded the east over Labour Day weekend.

:: Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Jeanne tore through the Dominican Republic with fierce winds that triggered mudslides and forced evacuations before it weakened to a tropical depression and crept toward the Bahamas.

Eight were killed across the Caribbean.

Three people died yesterday in the Dominican Republic. One man was killed by a falling palm tree.

Another was having a heart attack and couldn’t get to a hospital because of the storm, according to Juan Luis German, spokesman for the National Emergency Committee.

A third man drowned when he was swept up in a swollen river next to his house, German said.

All three deaths occurred northeast of Santo Domingo, which was saturated by the storm Thursday and where an infant died when a landslide crushed part of her family’s house.

The storm was downgraded to a depression late yesterday with 35 mph. It was still on a course though that would take it through the Bahamas late today. It was too soon to tell whether it would strengthen and affect Florida.