Tropical Storm Frances has moved to Florida's west coast after whipping off roofs, washing sailboats ashore and cutting power to nearly six million people along the eastern seaboard.
Frances nearly shut down the fourth-largest US state, home to 16 million people, for two days and threatened damage to buildings and the state's $53 billion tourism industry on the usually busy Labour Day holiday weekend.
But Miami escaped the worst of the storm and Disney World near Orlando said it had sustained little damage as massive Frances lumbered across central Florida.
The $9.1 billion citrus industry, hard hit by Hurricane Charley, was likely to take another blow as the storm moved across the state's best growing regions as a hurricane.
Forecasters downgraded the large and slow-moving storm, from which 2.5 million people had been urged to flee, from a hurricane to a tropical storm yesterday as it enveloped Tampa on the west coast.
In St Lucie County, where the eye of the storm came ashore, National Guard troops patrolled to deter looters and enforce a 24-hour curfew.
Police and fire crews moved out into streets where Frances peeled away aluminium siding, tore boats from moorings, felled trees and shattered traffic signals. In Fort Pierce, sailboats washed into parking lots.
Nearly 120,000 people were in public shelters, 3,400 patients were evacuated from hospitals and half a million sandbags were distributed to hold back floods.
Frances is now weakening over land, with sustained winds of 65 mph, down from 105 mph on Saturday.
State emergency managers said there were no confirmed reports of storm-related deaths, although there are reports one person in a shelter died of a heart attack.