‘We didn’t dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannon’
Post-hurricane Miami got back to business with a puff of smoke.
It came from the fat Arturo Fuente Opus X that Jorge Artiles was smoking after he opened his cigar shop in a strip mall. Asked why he decided to open only one day after Hurricane Irma turned the surrounding Brickell Avenue financial district into a lake, he said, “Because today is Monday.”
The first day of the week offered the city and all of Florida relief after facing what could have been a cataclysm. Hurricane Irma weakened as it moved north, leaving in its wake a state that avoided the worst predictions of destruction. By one estimate, the cost of total damages dropped to US$49 billion from US$200 billion. Still, almost seven million people were without power in the region and millions were displaced in what may yet go down as one of the worst storms in Florida’s history.
Five deaths in Florida were blamed on Irma, along with two in Georgia. At least 34 people were killed in the Caribbean as the storm closed in on the U.S. mainland.
The centre of the system, America’s second major hurricane in 15 days, softened to a tropical storm Monday and was set to be a mere depression later, the National Hurricane Center said. As the storm headed north, threatening torrential rains in Atlanta, a stormsurge warning was discontinued for parts of southern Florida.
“Miami and Miami Beach, we didn’t dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannon,” Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine said.
Across the state, roads were being cleared, buildings were repaired and assessed and an army of utility workers deployed from a network of temporary work camps. The Florida Keys, the delicate string of islands where Irma made landfall Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm, were closed off after having suffered extensive damage.
A flyover of the Keys yielded what the governor said were scenes of devastation.
“I just hope everyone survived,” Gov. Rick Scott said.
He said boats were cast ashore, water, sewers and electricity were knocked out, and “I don’t think I saw one trailer park where almost everything wasn’t overturned.
“It’s horrible, what we saw,” Scott said. “I know for our entire state, especially the Keys, it’s going to be a long road.”
Scott said the Navy dispatched the USS Iwo Jima, USS New York and the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to help with search and rescue and other relief efforts.
Emergency managers in the islands declared on Monday “the Keys are not open for business” and warned that there was no fuel, electricity, running water or cell service and that supplies were low and anxiety high.
“HELP IS ON THE WAY,” they promised on Facebook.
Floridians the length and breadth of the state emerged Monday and began to take stock.
WEAKENED IRMA PACKED A SMALLER PUNCH, BUT MILLIONS IN FLORIDA LEFT FLOODED AND WITHOUT POWER
“How are we going to survive from here?” asked Gwen Bush, who waded through thigh-deep floodwaters outside her Central Florida home to reach National Guard rescuers and get a ride to a shelter. “What’s going to happen now? I just don’t know.”
In Dade County, which includes Miami, the airport remained closed, though it was expected to open Tuesday. About 60 per cent of traffic signals were out and crews were removing debris that lined and blocked roads. A 7 p.m. curfew remained in effect.
“It wasn’t as catastrophic as we were told, as we feared,” Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said in an interview. “The question now is if we are prepared for sea-level rise and a storm surge with 100,000 residents along the waterfront. “I want to say that we’re not.”
Regalado said he planned to ask voters to authorize a US$200 million bond issue for hurricane protection.
Around the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, where Irma rolled through early Monday, damage appeared modest. People had braced for the first direct hit from a major hurricane since 1921. But by the time Irma rolled in the middle of the night Monday, its winds were down to 161 km/h or less.
“When that sun came out this morning and the damage was minimal, it became a good day,” said Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
In the Jacksonville area, close to the Georgia line, storm surge brought some of the worst flooding ever seen there, with at least 46 people pulled from swamped homes.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office warned residents along the St. Johns River to “Get out NOW.”
“If you need to get out, put a white flag in front of your house. A T-shirt, anything white,” the office said on its Facebook page. “Search and rescue teams are ready to deploy.”
The governor said damage on the southwest coast, including Naples and Fort Myers, was not as bad as feared.
As Irma began moving into Georgia, a tornado spun off by the storm was reported on the coast, and firefighters inland had to rescue several people after trees fell on their homes.
A tropical storm warning was issued for the first time ever in Atlanta, and school was cancelled in communities around the state. More than 100,000 customers were without power in Georgia and over 80,000 in South Carolina.
Over the next two days, Irma is expected to push to the northwest, into Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
In Canada, federal ministers expressed sympathy Monday for the hundreds of Canadians affected by Irma as well as their worried families back home, even as they sought to explain why more wasn’t done earlier to help them.
The government expected most Canadians needing assistance in the Caribbean to have been evacuated by commercial flights by the end of the day, including 90 from Turks and Caicos and 150 from St. Maarten.
A special team from Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence was in Antigua to determine what help was needed after the region endured the one-two punch of hurricanes Irma and Jose.
But Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the top priority was helping those Canadians affected by the hurricanes.
“We are working very, very hard to bring you home,” Freeland told a briefing via conference call from Toronto, where she planned to meet many of the returning Canadians at the airport later in the day.
“We are very aware of how frightening, how worrying this situation is and I am not going to rest until everybody is back and safe.”
Officials said they had received requests for assistance from 368 Canadians, though they acknowledged there may have been others who hadn’t yet been able to get in contact with Global Affairs.
Air Canada and WestJet flights were scheduled to arrive Monday.
The government’s move to action Monday followed a storm of criticism over the weekend from family of those trapped by the hurricanes, who questioned why more wasn’t done sooner.
Many noted that the U.S. and several other countries had deployed their militaries to evacuate citizens and wondered why Canada hadn’t done the same and was instead relying on commercial airlines.
Liberal ministers maintained there was no shortage of aircraft thanks to the commercial airlines; the problem, they maintained, was with having enough space to land the planes.