Irma begins assault on Florida SOME INDIANS IN FLORIDA STAY PUT AS OTHERS LEAVE TO SAFETY
Storm expected to remain a Category 4 as it hits state’s west coast
ST PETERSBURG: Hurricane Irma roared through the Florida Keys on Sunday with punishing 130 mph winds and began pushing its way north, knocking out power to more than 1.5 million people across the state and collapsing a construction crane over the Miami skyline.
The nearly 400-mile-wide storm is expected to make a slow, ruinous march up Florida’s west coast, straight toward the heavily populated Tampa-St Petersburg area by Monday morning.
Streets emptied across the bottom half of the Florida peninsula, and some 127,000 people huddled in shelters.
“Pray, pray for everybody in Florida,” Governor Rick Scott said. Flooding, roof damage and floating appliances and furniture were reported in the low-lying Keys, but with the storm still hitting around midday, the full extent of Irma’s wrath was not clear. There were no immediate confirmed reports of any deaths from the storm.
While the projected track showed Irma raking the state’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the entire state — including the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people — was in extreme danger from the monstrously wide storm.
Nearly 7 million people in the Southeast were warned to get out of harm’s way, including 6.4 million in Florida alone.
About 30,000 people heeded orders to evacuate the Keys as the storm closed in, but an untold number refused to leave, in part because to many storm-hardened residents, staying behind in the face of danger is a point of pride.
In downtown Miami, one of two dozen construction cranes looming over the skyline collapsed atop a high-rise in Irma’s winds. There was no immediate word on any damage or injuries. City officials said it would have taken about two weeks to have moved the cranes out of harm’s way. Irma made landfall just after 9 am at Cudjoe Key, about 20 miles outside Key West, forecasters said. By late morning, it was advancing toward Florida’s southwestern corner, moving at 9 mph.
Key West Police urged anyone riding out the storm in that city to “resist the urge” to go outside during the eye, the deceptively calm interlude in the middle of a hurricane. “Dangerous winds will follow quickly,” police said in a Facebook post.
“Once this system passes through, it’s going to be a race to save lives and sustain lives,” Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long said. Irma was at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with peak wind speed of 185 mph. NEW DELHI Some of the Indian families in Florida chose to remain at their homes, while others moved to safer areas as Hurricane Irma hit the state.
“We started driving on Friday, and have come quite far from our home,” Satish Nigam, a resident of Naples, Florida, told HT over phone. “The storm was not supposed to affect us, but after it changed its path, we decided to evacuate.”
When HT spoke to him, Nigam and his family had reached the city of Destin, and were headed to New Orleans in the neighbouring state of Louisiana to wait out the storm.
“Some neighbours are staying back. That, and good planning by the (US) authorities ensured that we had no problems getting out,” he said.
“This is such a big evacuation, but apart from having more than ordinary traffic on the road — meaning the drive was slow —all things have been smooth.”
Nigam did have one worry on his mind — his house in Naples. “I have insurance, but my worry is that if the roof itself flies off, there is little we can do in terms of claims,” he said.
But another family of Indian origin, in Fort Lauderdale, said they were staying back.
“We received non-mandatory evacuation orders and were told it was our personal choice whether to leave or not, so we decided to stay back,” Usha Venkatachalam told HT.
“We are more than 30 km away from the shore, so we are better off to ride out the storm. We also have hurricane-proof windows and a shelter in our house, so we are prepared for the storm.”