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WEST PALM BEACH - Dispatchers spent 90 minutes talking a 27-year-old mother of four through the birth of her fifth child early Sunday, as Frances battered Palm Beach County with rain and winds of 100 mph that made it unsafe for rescue crews to venture out.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Capt. Dan Delucia said an ambulance picked up the suburban Lantana woman after the 2:16 a.m. birth, once winds died down somewhat, and brought her and her baby girl to JFK Hospital several miles away in Atlantis.
Also, Delucia confirmed that there were two separate cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in people who were improperly using generators for power. Each incident involved six people, and there were no fatalities. One incident occurred with people staying inside a large building; the other was six people inside a mobile home that was stored inside a warehouse for shelter, Delucia said.
As of Sunday morning, there were reports of 24 power lines down throughout the county, and traffic lights out or blown down at five intersections.
County Commissioner Warren Newell drove around southern-central Palm Beach County to inspect damage about 8 a.m., and said a piece of Interstate 95 under construction in central Palm Beach County also collapsed or washed away in the rains. He said the damage is to a shoulder in the northbound side of I-95 south of the Forest Hill Boulevard exit, and is about 40 feet long by 12 feet wide.
"It's huge," he said. "We're just hoping it doesn't creep over into the lane, because we don't want that to collapse."
Newell said the tiny town of Cloud Lake, located near Palm Beach International Airport, is impassable because of huge fallen ficus trees. Sections of other roads also are blocked by trees, he said.
"But I didn't see as much rain as I thought we'd see," said Newell. "It could have been worse."
The eye of Frances moved over the Martin-St. Lucie county area overnight, but the edge of the eyewall appears to have passed over northern Palm Beach County in Jupiter.
More than 1.5-million people in 20 counties served by FPL remained without power as of early Saturday - including 388,000 in Broward, 147,000 in Miami-Dade, 584,000 in Palm Beach, 75,000 in Martin and 90,000 in St. Lucie.