MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Across South Florida's largest cities, Hurricane Wilma forced residents, hospital administrators, airport staff and emergency personnel to cope with sweeping power outages that may not be quickly remedied.More than 6 million people were without power early Tuesday, and while utility company officials said they would try to restore service within days, they also indicated that it could take up to four weeks to fully restore service to all customers."We ask your patience," said Armando Olivera, president of Florida Power & Light Company. "We will do everything we can to get the lights back on."More of the company's 4.3 million customers have been affected by Wilma than by any other natural disaster in the company's history, Olivera said. In heavily populated areas such as Miami-Dade County, as many as 98 percent of its customers lost power.Storm-weary Floridians resigned themselves for the wait."You manage. You have lights, you have candles, portable fans, portable TVs and batteries," said Marilyn Jacobs, a widow who lives in the Westchester area of Miami-Dade County. "There's nothing much you can do right now."Miami-Dade County enacted a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., in large part because only 18 of the region's 2,600 traffic lights were working. Broward County's curfew was from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., and police assigned additional officers to patrol streets and protect businesses from looting.The corridors of Miami International Airport, usually teeming with 90,000 passengers on a Monday night, were dark and empty. The third busiest airport in the U.S. -- like others in the region -- was closed.Many hospitals worked on auxiliary power as they reduced services such as elective surgeries, plus coped with a lack of water and other problems churned by Wilma's furious wrath.At Broward General Hospital, air conditioning was limited to intensive care and other patient areas. The emergency room was open and the facility was accepting patients from nearby hospitals that lost essential services.Progress Energy, which has 1.5 million customers in central and north Florida, had 52,000 customers lose power at one point; by 5 a.m. Tuesday, that number was down to 1,259."We did get lucky," said Progress Energy spokeswoman Deborah Shipley.Another bit of luck: When Wilma left, temperatures plunged quickly across the peninsula, so air conditioning wasn't exactly necessary. Overnight lows were expected to range from the low 40s in north Florida to around 54 near Miami."It looks like nature's going to give us her own air conditioning," said National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Gregoria.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.