St. Marks, Fla. ? Frances sloshed into the Florida Panhandle on Monday, taking a second swing at a storm-weary state where it already had knocked out power to 6 million people, torn up roofs and boats and been blamed for at least seven deaths.

While Panhandle residents rode out the tropical storm’s heavy rain and wind blowing at a sustained 65 mph, shutters started coming down in the south and residents began returning to homes they had evacuated.

The return revealed fresh hardship as motorists waited for gasoline in queues that stretched up to five miles, and others stood in enormous lines to get water, ice and other basic supplies. There was even a long line at a dump in Miami, where 25 cars waited to dispose of storm debris.

“We really hope to get ice and everything else. We don’t know what they have in there,” said Christine Bland, standing in line with about 1,500 other people at a Wal-Mart in Palm Beach County. Up the coast in Fort Pierce, hundreds of people stood in a line with buckets and ice chests on a sunny, steamy afternoon.

More than 3 million people remained without power Monday night.

President Bush, expected to survey the damage Wednesday, is asking Congress to approve $2 billion to help victims of hurricanes Charley and Frances.

The core of the storm, once a powerful Category 4 hurricane before it slowed, slammed into the state’s Atlantic coast early Sunday. After crossing the state and a corner of the Gulf of Mexico, it made its second Florida landfall at St. Marks, 20 miles south of Tallahassee, Monday afternoon. At 7 pm. CDT, maximum sustained winds had dropped to near 40 mph.

In Tampa, 105 residents of a retirement home were evacuated in wheelchairs with floodwaters lapping at their knees. The water seeped into the home from a retention pond.

Heather Downs moved into the home two weeks ago after her apartment was badly damaged by Charley. “I’m not scared,” said Downs, standing outside in bare feet. “I’ve been through a lot.”

The Fort Pierce City Marina is seen littered with smashed docks and boats in the aftermath of Hurricane Frances in Florida. The storm passed through the state a second time Monday, crossing over the Panhandle.

Forecasters said Frances could bring up to 10 inches of rain and a 5- to 10-foot storm surge to the Panhandle. Four coastal counties ordered evacuations.

But while Frances was heading out of Florida, residents had started keeping a wary eye on yet another storm. Ivan, the fifth hurricane of the year, had sustained wind of near 105 mph and was centered 250 miles east-southeast of Barbados in the central Atlantic. Forecasters weren’t sure whether it would hit the United States.

Airports in Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach and Key West reopened. By Monday evening, more than 80,000 people remained in shelters, down from about 108,000 on Sunday.

Frances also ripped an estimated 1,000 exterior panels from NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. It was the worst hurricane damage to ever strike the space center, officials said.

The seven Florida deaths blamed on Frances included a grandson and a former son-in-law of Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden. The pair died in a collision on a rain-slippery highway.

On Monday, a school employee died in Ocala after falling from a ladder while checking the roof of a middle school for damage.

A man in the Fort Myers area died Sunday while walking his dog when he was struck by flying debris. A Gainesville woman was killed in her living room when an oak tree crashed onto her mobile home. Two other people died in traffic crashes blamed on the storm.