Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ? A sloppy Hurricane Katrina lashed south Florida early Thursday evening with driving rain and gusts of more than 90 mph, leaving at least two people dead from falling trees.

About 412,000 homes and businesses in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties went dark. In Fort Lauderdale alone, police and fire crews responded to about 150 downed power lines.

Because of a power failure, a Fort Lauderdale hospital had to transport its patients to other facilities, according to Fort Lauderdale Division Chief Jim Sheehan.

Scores of traffic signals went out. Streets in several flood-prone areas were under water. Battering waves raged over the beaches. Homes and buildings suffered minor damage, from downed pool screens to leaking roofs.

Todd Goldsberry clings to a piling Thursday while making his way back to shore from his sailboat Talisman in the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Winds gusted to 92 mph at Port Everglades, to 87 mph in Miami and 74 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

May Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County, urged care, noting that eight people died by drowning and electrocution after Hurricane Irene drenched south Florida in October 1999.

Katrina, he said, will be similar: a slow-moving system soaking the area with as much as 15 inches of rain in some areas.

In the first of the storm-related deaths on Thursday, a man standing outside his home near Plantation was assessing the power outage when a heavy tree branch fell on him. He was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

In the second death, a massive ficus tree fell on two cars driving through a residential neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale. Three people escaped from one of the cars. In the other car, a man died, police and fire officials said.