Florida Keys residents return to find devastation

Residents have been allowed to return to some islands in the hurricane-hit Florida Keys as officials try to piece together the scope of Irma’s destruction and rush aid to the drenched and debris-strewn area.

Two days after the storm roared into the Keys with 130mph winds, the full extent of the destruction is still unclear as communications and access are cut off in many areas.

But residents and business owners from Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada near the mainland were allowed back for their first look.

The Lower Keys – including the chain’s most distant and most populous island, Key West, with 27,000 people – are still off-limits, with a roadblock where the single road to the farther islands was washed out.

Corey Smith, a delivery driver who rode out the hurricane in Key Largo, said power was out on the island, there was little fuel and supermarkets were closed. Tree debris blocked some roads.

“They’re shoving people back to a place with no resources,” he said by telephone. “It’s just going to get crazy pretty quick.” Seven deaths in Florida have been blamed on Irma. And in neighbouring Georgia, the remnants of Irma forced Atlanta’s International Airport – one of the world’s busiest – to cancel 200 flights as the storm claimed four lives in Georgia and South Carolina.

In Atlanta, people waited nervously as the city, 250 miles inland, experienced its first tropical storm warning.

A driver had to be rescued after a sink hole opened up