FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Thousands of residents desperate to return home after fleeing Hurricane Frances ignored Florida’s plea to stay put yesterday, jamming highways, delaying emergency workers, and causing tempers to flare in the sticky heat.

One man was so desperate for ice that he shot the lock off a freezer. Fights broke out in some places. Drivers waited for hours to fill up their gas tanks. More than 1,000 cars coiled around several blocks in Stuart as a distribution center watched over by National Guardsmen offered water, ice and ready-to-eat meals.

“Everyone’s hot, everyone’s sweating so much at night that nobody can sleep. Everyone’s tossing and turning. The kids keep crying. I can’t take no more of this. Nobody can take this,” said Maria Sanchez, 26, who waited more than 90 minutes with her four children to get supplies in Stuart, about 35 miles north of West Palm Beach.

While many began removing debris, clearing downed trees, and mopping up the water in their homes, weary Floridians looked over their shoulder at another hurricane several days away in the Atlantic. Ivan could become the third hurricane to hit the state this year, though it was too soon to determine the storm’s exact path.

“It almost seems like we’ve got a ‘kick me’ sign on the state here,” said the director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Max Mayfield.

As many Floridians went home for the first time since Frances battered the state Sunday, traffic on parts of Interstate 95, the major highway along the Atlantic coast, was double the usual levels. Federal Emergency Management Agency workers trying to reach Martin County got stuck in traffic.

About 3 million Floridians were told it could take up to a week to restore power to all of them, with the longest wait for Daytona Beach. That was bad news with high humidity and temperatures hovering around 90 degrees.

St. Lucie County administrator Doug Anderson said: “We had some fights break out already today. We are asking the public to please be patient and neighborly. We are all in this together.”

Palm Beach County officials reported at least 300 arrests, estimating about 75% were for violating curfew.

Frances hit a wide swath of Florida’s east coast early Sunday with winds of 105 mph and more than 13 inches of rain, ripping off roofs and flooding streets up to 4 feet deep. It weakened into a tropical storm before sweeping into the Panhandle on Labor Day, causing little damage there.

The storm’s remnants dumped heavy rain yesterday in Georgia and Alabama, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and closing schools, while the Carolinas were bracing for a series of tornadoes as a result of the storm. The storm was blamed for at least 18 deaths in Georgia and Florida.