Hurricane Jeanne Adds to Florida's Troubles

Hurricane Jeanne, the fourth storm to hit Florida in six weeks, shut down much of the state and was blamed for at least six deaths, news services reported.

Although the full extent of the damage was not known yet, Jeanne flooded some bridges from the mainland to barrier islands straddling the Atlantic coast, damaged roads and left about than 2.3 million homes and businesses without power. And there was fear of flooding in the days to come from swollen rivers in east and central Florida, already saturated by previous hurricanes, the Associated Press reported.

President Bush declared a major disaster area in Florida while officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the hurricanes represented the largest relief effort in the agency's history.

The National Hurricane Center said Jeanne was expected to weaken into a tropical depression on Monday night while moving east of the Florida Panhandle, where 70,000 homes and businesses remained without power because of Hurricane Ivan less than two weeks ago.

At 5 a.m. EDT Monday, the center of the storm was about 40 miles east of Tallahassee. It was moving north-northwest near 12 mph.

Jeanne also dumped about 6 inches of rain on south-central Georgia, the hurricane center said. In addition, most counties in South Carolina's northeast corner were under a flood watch, and the U.S. Weather Service placed much of southern Georgia under a tornado watch.