Irma closes in with Tampa in the crosshairs
Floridians crowd into shelters and rush to protect homes as hurricane force winds hit
Hurricane Irma began its destructive barrage on Florida last night, with brutal leading winds flattening trees and knocking out power across the southern tip of the state in what residents feared were the opening blows of a historically devastating storm.
The Category four hurricane, leaving a wake of at least 22 dead on battered Caribbean islands, roared towards the US mainland with thousands of residents still on the move. The first hurricane-force wind gust — 119km/h — from Irma in Florida was recorded yesterday afternoon in the Florida Keys.
More than five million people across the state were ordered to leave threatened areas, one of the largest emergency evacuations in US history.
Some were forced to flee more than once as the storm’s changing path shifted the bull’s eye of panic from the east side to the west side of the peninsula, from Miami to Tampa.
Officials along the Gulf Coast scrambled to open shelters for a stampede of residents newly alarmed when Irma swung her fury their way. Thousands were lined up to enter an arena in Naples even as wind gusts climbed above 120km/h at some South Florida airports.
“The storm is here,” Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) said at a news conference.
The National Hurricane Centre had downgraded Irma to a Category three storm, with maximum sustained winds of 200km/h. But after pounding Cuba, the storm drew strength from the Atlantic as it spun northward and became a Category four storm last night. It was expected to drive a storm surge of 3m to 4.5m towards parts of the Florida Keys.
The centre of the storm is expected to head up the state’s west coast, with Naples, Fort Myers and Tampa bearing the brunt. However, Irma’s sprawling size could produce hazards across the breadth of the state, with all of Florida likely to experience damaging winds, rains, flooding and tornadoes. Storm surges are still a danger on the east coast. “This is a deadly storm, and our state has never seen anything like it,” Scott said in an appeal for residents to seek shelter.
Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Centre, Fire Chief Dave Downey said rescue teams would deploy as soon as conditions allowed his department’s helicopters to take off from Orlando, where they had been moved to safety.
The question, he said, “is how fast can we get into the Keys, how fast can we get into the West Coast”. The likelihood that the storm will make a direct hit on the Keys, he said, “terrifies all of us”.
Florida Power and Light said 4.1 million people could lose power as a result of the storm. At least 76,000 people had already lost power across the state. Counties including Broward issued curfews, and at least 70 more shelters were open. At least 75,000 people are staying in about 400 shelters across the state. Scott implored nurses to volunteer throughout Florida; the state desperately needs 1000 nurses in its special-needs shelters.
In Estero, on the west coast, thousands of people wrapped around the massive Germain Arena, which officials opened as a shelter with a capacity of 7000 to 8000.
At least six ambulances responded to people who were overcome in the muggy, 32C-degree heat.
Leaning on a cane, Betty Sellers, 68, and her son, Doug, 49, had driven up to Estero from Naples because “the shelters were mostly closed there,” she said.
Officials at the Collier County emergency operations centre in Naples said that 15,000 people filled all its shelters but that they were trying to expand space to accommodate more people.
Demand exceeded expectations as the latest forecasts showed the area likely to be near the centre of Irma’s path.
Officials are also concerned that wind gusts will send water over the
Herbert Hoover Dike at Lake Okeechobee, which covers more than 1812 sq km.
Evacuations were ordered for cities and towns on the south side of the lake.
Trying to outrun Irma has tested the patience and wallets of thousands of Floridians who evacuated from one part of the state to another, only to find the hurricane had tricked them.
“I think the storm is chasing my dogs,” said John Fitzgerald, a stock trader from Miami. Fitzgerald was checking into the Hilton DoubleTree in Gainesville, hours after evacuating from a hotel in Tampa, his original destination.
When Irma’s projected path shifted west, hotels started asking guests to get out and he headed inland.
Miami residents began expressing cautious optimism that Irma would spare them its most violent winds. “I think God helped us a little bit,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez.
Still, this became a ghost metropolis, with boulevards empty of cars and people as far as the eye could see.
A place famous for chaotic and crowded traffic had utterly empty roads and highways.
More than 28,000 people had taken refuge in county shelters. Countless more were simply holed up behind their metal hurricane shutters. Almost every business had closed.
Hector Perez, 34, his cousin Madelyn Loria, 35, and her teenage children made a special trip to the historic Deering Estate on Biscayne Bay to see the first signs of the storm surge.
“We’re true Miamians!” Perez said.