A National Guardsman in camouflage fatigues waved cars forward, and as each rolled up to a squad of soldiers, one sang out, "Pop the trunk." Other soldiers stepped forward with cartons of bottled water and plastic bags of ice, putting them in the car, tapping the trunk shut and motioning the driver on. Each delivery was over in seconds.

"We've done this so much over the last two or three years that we're getting pretty good at it," said Sgt. First Class Tim Harper of the 265th Air Defense Artillery of Sarasota.

The storm clogged the streets of Naples, one of the wealthiest cities in the country, with fallen shrubs and trees. But even as the wind was dying down Monday afternoon, yellow frontloaders were pushing and shoving and lifting away debris, and by Tuesday afternoon the main streets and most residential byways were clear.

Floodwater that had risen knee-high in some parts of Naples also was all but gone by Tuesday afternoon, as it was in Miami's downtown banking district. But the sleek high-rise buildings that line Miami's Brickell Avenue, home to some of Florida's largest banks, law firms and expensive hotels, looked shabby with many windows blown out, the glass shattered in the street below.

"It looks worse than it is," said Cesar Alvarez, chief executive and president of the law firm Greenberg Traurig, which lost windows in about a third of its lawyers' offices.

Schools throughout South Florida will stay closed for the rest of the week, officials said, and the Broward County Courthouse, a high-rise building that lost dozens of plate-glass windows in the storm, will not reopen for at least two weeks. Ceilings collapsed in judges' chambers, and the jury room, state attorney's office and public defender's office were also damaged, said Chief Judge Dale Ross.

One of the state's biggest businesses is growing ornamental plants and flowers and trees, but dozens of nurseries in the southwest Florida were battered by the storm. At the H.M. Buckley & Sons wholesale nursery in Naples, about half of the 40 workers turned up Tuesday to find the plastic and mesh covering ripped off many greenhouses. A few had been knocked down, and some sheds had been reduced to heaps of shredded lumber.