Irma hits islands

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Irma blacked out much of Puerto Rico as the dangerous Category 5 storm raked the U.S. territory with heavy wind and rain while staying just out to sea, and it headed early Thursday toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm’s record 185 mph winds earlier Wednesday, while people in Florida rushed to get ready for a possible direct hit on the Miami area.

Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma, and information on damage trickled out.

Nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday and about 60 percent of its roughly 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.

“It is just really a horrendous situation,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island.

He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery would

IRMA

take months, if not years. A 2-yearold child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne said.

On St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Laura Strickling spent 12 hours hunkered down with her husband and 1-year-old daughter in a boarded-up basement apartment with no power as the storm raged outside. They emerged to find the lush island in tatters. Many of their neighbors’ homes were damaged and once-dense vegetation was largely gone.

“There are no leaves. It is crazy. One of the things we loved about St. Thomas is that it was so green. And it’s gone,” Strickling said. “It will take years for this community to get back on its feet.”

Significant damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. Photos and video circulating on social media showed major damage to the airport in Philipsburg and the coastal village of Marigot heavily flooded.

France sent emergency food and water there and to the French island of St. Bart’s, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity. Dutch marines who flew to St. Martin and two other Dutch island reported extensive damage but no deaths or injuries.

By late Wednesday, the center of the storm was about 85 miles northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moving to the west-northwest at 16 mph.

More than half the island of Puerto Rico was without power, leaving 900,000 in the dark and

nearly 50,000 without water, the

U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said in the midst of the storm. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as passes just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, nears the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirts Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.

The storm is expected to hit Florida sometime Sunday, and Gov. Rick Scott said he planned to activate 7,000 National Guard soldiers by Friday.

Also Wednesday, Tropical Storm Katia formed in the Gulf of Mexico off Mexico’s coast and rapidly became a hurricane. Another tropical storm farther east in the Atlantic became a hurricane Wednesday evening.

Hurricane Jose posed no immediate threat to land, but meteorologists warned the storm’s path could change.