Welcome to my Hurricane Wilma photo gallery with photos of Wilma as she approached and swept across Key West Fl.

Hurricane Wilma approached the Keys from the south west after stalling for several days over Cancun Mex. As the storm approached the Keys it began to move faster across the Gulf(to 15-20mph) and the winds began to strengthen again to a Category 3 storm.

We began to experience tropical storm force winds around midnight on Sunday Oct. 23rd increasing to 90mph winds at about 3 am. We locked down around 8pm and had electricity till 12:30am. We actually never lost phone / internet service thanks to the cheap $10 wired phone I bought earlier that day. As expected we didn't sleep very well as the house swayed back and forth in the wind.

The eye wall passed within about 70 miles to the north west of Key West. The high winds uprooted trees, knocked down signs, traffic lights, utility poles, roofs, flattened several buildings and destroyed lots of vegetation. The most devastation however was from the storm surge and flooding. As Wilma passed Key West it created a 6-8 foot storm surge from the east / Atlantic side of island. Then at daybreak after the winds settled down a bit and the rains stopped we all watched the secondary and more devasating storm surge approach from the north and west flooding the island from the gulf side. We were lucky as the water stopped within 2 blocks of our house. While the water receeded rather rapidly it was estimated that 60-70% of the island was under water flooding many homes and wrecking hundreds of cars.

We personally incurred very little damage mainly to trees, vegetation and fences. We lost electric for about 2 days but we had a generator wired to the house. The weather after the storm was beautiful and it has been amazing at how resilient the people have been. By Monday afternoon people were working hard cleaning up and putting their lives back together. Besides the storm destruction however Wilma put a real hurt on the local economy as Fantasy Fest was canceled and the busiest tourism time was lost to Wilma.

For purchase or usage rights contact: Bill Klipp, billklipp@wkimages.net