Harvey ruin still fresh; Florida steels for Irma
KEY LARGO, Fla. — Hurricane Irma’s Category 5 size and strength put Florida on high alert Tuesday even as millions of people across Texas still reeled from Hurricane Harvey’s Category 4 destruction less than two weeks ago.
People in Florida prepared to evacuate in anticipation of catastrophic winds and flooding forecast to reach the state by this weekend.
Irma, with winds of 185 mph Tuesday, neared landfall in the northern Leeward Islands early today on a westerly path.
Ahead of the storm’s arrival, President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared emergencies in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The declarations authorize the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate
disaster relief efforts in those places.
On Aug. 25, Hurricane Harvey reached landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast north of Corpus Christi. It parked over the region, producing record rainfall that flooded thousands of homes and displaced tens of thousands of people. The storm has been blamed for at least 60 deaths.
By Tuesday evening, Hurricane Irma was 130 miles east of the island of Antigua in the Leewards. The storm was moving westward at 15 mph, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that weather conditions would soon deteriorate in that part of Florida.
Throughout south Florida, officials readied evacuation orders and people raided store shelves, buying up water and other hurricane supplies. Long lines formed at gas stations, and people pulled shutters out of storage and put up plywood to protect their homes and businesses.
Parker Eastin filled up his gas tank at a busy fuel station. He and his girlfriend said they devised a plan after seeing what Hurricane Harvey did in Texas.
“We ordered water off Amazon because the stores were out and also ordered food,” said Eastin, a 43-year-old lawyer who has lived in Florida for 12 years. “Seeing the devastation in Texas is a sad reminder that you have to take the events very seriously.”
Irma’s 185 mph winds could strengthen as the storm nears the easternmost Caribbean islands, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm is already the strongest hurricane ever recorded outside the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Hurricane warnings have been issued for the northern Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Turks and Caicos. A hurricane watch covers Haiti and the southeastern Bahamas.
Warm water fuels hurricanes, and Irma is over water that is 1.8 degrees warmer than normal. The 79-degree water that hurricanes need reaches about 250 feet deep, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private forecasting service Weather Underground.
The northern Leeward Islands were expected to see waves as high as 11 feet, while the Turks and Caicos islands and southeastern Bahamas could see towering 20-foot waves later in the week, forecasters said.
“This is not an opportunity to go outside and try to have fun with a hurricane,” U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp warned. “It’s not time to get on a surfboard.”
In Puerto Rico, government officials began evacuations and urged people to finalize all preparations as store shelves emptied around the island.
“The decisions that we make in the next couple of hours can make the difference between life and death,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said. “This is an extremely dangerous storm.”
The last major storm to hit Florida was Wilma in 2005. Its eye cut through the state’s southern third as the storm packed winds of 120 mph. Five people died.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Monday declared a state of emergency in all 67 counties to give local governments “ample time, resources and flexibility” to prepare for the storm.
Scott warned that although officials don’t know the storm’s exact path, winds are likely to be “extreme and life-threatening,” and the effects could be felt inland, away from the coast. He said Floridians need to follow any evacuation orders.
“This storm has the potential to devastate this state, and you have to take this seriously,” Scott said from the state’s emergency operations center in Tallahassee, the state capital. “Remember: We can rebuild your home; we cannot rebuild your life.”
Computer models are in strong agreement that by Saturday, Irma will be approaching the Florida Keys, a chain of 42 low-lying islands, where dangerous storm conditions are likely. Then, they show a sharp northward turn by Sunday morning. The precise timing and location of the turn has huge implications for Florida.
It is impossible to say with certainty at this point whether Irma will track up along the eastern side of the Florida Peninsula, along the western side, or straight up the peninsula. Since the weekend, models have generally shown it shifting westward with the storm’s forecast track, toward the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
For a major hurricane, determining the exact track of the eye-wall — the zone surrounding its calm center — is critical, as it will determine where the most severe effects will concentrate. The most violent winds coincide with the eye-wall, and the biggest storm surge occurs just to its right.
Because of Irma’s size, dangerous weather conditions will also occur up to 200 miles away from the eye-wall.
Among those conditions are coastal surge, flooding rains and damaging winds, forecasters said.
“The hurricane force winds in Irma are wider than Florida,” tweeted Bryan Norcross, hurricane specialist at the Weather Channel. “You won’t need a direct hit to get Wilma-type winds & storm surge on both coasts.”
In the Florida Keys, government officials said visitors will be told to leave today and residents should be out by Thursday.
“This is not one to fool around with,” said Monroe County spokesman Cammy Clark, whose county contains the Florida Keys.
Under a mandatory evacuation order, no one is forced by police or other government agencies to leave, but any people who stay should not expect to be rescued if they end up in danger, officials said. The Florida island chain has only one highway connecting it to the mainland.
Florida Keys residents are famous for riding out hurricanes, but Randy Towe, who owns a recreational fishing company in the Keys, said Irma is different.
“I’ve talked to a lot of [Keys natives] whose families have lived here 100 years, and they say this certainly might be a big one,” said Towe, who has lived in the Florida Keys for 36 years.
He said owners of large boats have secured them in canals by tying them to mangrove roots. Smaller boats have been put on trailers and into storage. He said he plans to evacuate with his family if Irma’s forecast doesn’t change.
On the Florida mainland, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez urged tourists to cut their vacations short and said residents may be asked to leave as early as today.
“The potential is too great for us not to take action right now,” Gimenez said.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Jose formed Tuesday morning in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. The storm is also predicted to intensify into a hurricane over the coming days, but the latest track forecast keeps it mostly away from land areas.
Information for this article was contributed by Adriana Gomez, Terry Spencer, Kelli Kennedy, Gary Fineout, Anika Kentish, Danica Coto, Seth Borenstein, Michael Weissenstein and Ben Fox of The Associated Press; and by Brian McNoldy and Jason Samenow of