The naturally squishy muck that supports a sea of sugar cane in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee was even more quicksand-like after absorbing Frances' punch of precipitation.

The peat soil fields are not under water but remain extremely wet, said Robert Buker, executive vice-president of operations for U.S. Sugar, a major grower in the 700,000-acre farming region.

"You couldn't put a pick-up truck in there, it would sink right up to the body," Buker said.

U.S. Sugar had more than soggy soil worries. Hurricane winds flattened much of the area's cane, which may have uprooted or damaged stalks, he said. That can curtail sugar production.

Barrier islands just yards to blocks from the sea's wrath escaped lingering floods.

But much farther inland, residents of some rural recesses of Palm Beach County were still wading in water Monday that climbed out of their canals, inviting snakes and alligators to cruise residential streets.

Water over-topped the banks of canals in The Acreage west of Bee Line Highway, where residents have grown accustomed to waterlogged living in heavy rains.

But Hurricane Frances and its lethargic lashing of rain gave the low-lying community its worst swamping in some time, said resident and Indian Trail Improvement District board member Penny Riccio.

"This was a catastrophic event for us," said Riccio, whose 1.5-acre property on 71st Place North was two-thirds under water. "Our canals never have breached their banks.

"All our yards are blended together with water," Riccio said.

Flooding from Frances was patchy. Many parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties soaked up just one to three inches of rain, volumes on par with a severe summer squall and carried off handily by South Florida's water-moving veins, the region's drainage canals.

But along its wettest passages across Palm Beach County, Frances dumped up to 13 inches of rain over two days. That occurred at Palm Beach International Airport, according to the National Weather Service and across much of the 218-square-mile Lake Worth Drainage District that stretches from Boca Raton to West Palm Beach and from U.S. 441 to Interstate 95, according to drainage district manager Bill Winters.

Riccio said her community endured 18 inches of rain in 24 hours but that total could not be confirmed.

The naturally squishy muck that supports a sea of sugar cane in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee was even more quicksand-like after absorbing Frances' punch of precipitation.

The peat soil fields are not under water but remain extremely wet, said Robert Buker, executive vice-president of operations for U.S. Sugar, a major grower in the 700,000-acre farming region.

"You couldn't put a pick-up truck in there, it would sink right up to the body," Buker said.

U.S. Sugar had more than soggy soil worries. Hurricane winds flattened much of the area's cane, which may have uprooted or damaged stalks, he said. That can curtail sugar production.

Farmers and the South Florida Water Management District were working hard to pump out the croplands.

And the L-8 canal, a key drain pipe along the eastern edge of the Everglades Agricultural Area for much of the crop-threatening storm water, continued to rise Monday, possibly from debris blocking the flow of water, said South Florida Water Management District spokesman Randy Smith. The district dispatched crews to respond to the problem.

The water district reported no serious flood-removal glitches Monday but was running low on diesel fuel to power some of its major pumps after several days of around-the-clock duty, Smith said. That pumps' pace will have to continue, but "the district had been told help is on the way" because flood control would be a priority in the distribution of state fuel supplies, Smith said.

The Lake Worth Drainage District started lowering its 511-mile network of canals Monday and opened their floodgates full on Thursday to ready the drainage ditches for gathering runoff. After Frances had moved through, some canals that had been bled nearly dry rose eight feet, Winters said. Still, flooding was minimal to nil, he said.

"It sat out there so long, we expected it to be worse," he said of the hurricane's rain potential.

Indian Trail also dropped canal levels before the storm so low that "the fish could barely swim," Riccio said. The agency pumped full bore on Monday to evacuate floodwaters that obscured canal edges and property lines, and lured at least one alligator into a neighbor's yard, Riccio said.

" This water will take until Saturday to drain," she said.