Irma targets Tampa,

NAPLES, Fla. — Hurricane Irma’s leading edges whipped palm trees and kicked up the surf as the storm spun toward Florida with 125 mph winds Saturday on a projected new track that could put Tampa — not Miami — in the crosshairs.

Tampa has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in nearly a century.

The westward swing in the overnight forecast caught many people off guard along Florida’s Gulf coast and triggered an abrupt shift in the storm preparations. A major round of evacuations was ordered in the Tampa area, and shelters there soon began filling up.

The window was closing fast for anyone wanting to escape before the arrival of the fearsome storm today. Irma — at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic — left more than 20 people dead in its wake across the Caribbean.

“You need to leave — not tonight, not in an hour, right now,” Gov. Rick Scott warned residents in Florida’s evacuation zones, which encompassed a staggering 6.4 million people, or more than one in four people in the state.

For days, the forecast had made it look as if the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people on Florida’s Atlantic coast could get hit head-on with the catastrophic and long-dreaded Big One.

But that soon changed. Meteorologists predicted Irma’s center would blow ashore today in the perilously low-lying Florida Keys, then hit southwestern Florida and move north during the day, plowing into the Tampa Bay area by Monday morning.

The Miami metro area could still get pounded with life-threatening hurricane winds.

Tampa has not been struck by a major hurricane since 1921, when its population was about 10,000, National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. Now the area has about 3 million people.

The new course threatened everything from Tampa Bay’s bustling twin cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg to Naples’ mansion-and yacht-lined canals, Sun City Center’s retirement homes, and Sanibel Island’s shell-filled beaches.

By late morning Saturday, however, few businesses in St. Petersburg and its barrier islands had put plywood or hurricane shutters on their windows, and some locals grumbled about the change in the forecast.

“For five days, we were told it was going to be on the east coast, and then 24 hours before it hits, we’re now told it’s coming up the west coast,” said Jeff Beerbohm, a 52-year-old entrepreneur in St. Petersburg. “As usual, the weatherman, I don’t know why they’re paid.”