All Fla.’s major cities whacked, Keys left in ruins

A WEAKENED but still deadly Irma lumbered north Monday, leaving unimaginable devastation behind as it lashed Georgia and South Carolina with vicious winds and stinging rain.

Downgraded to a tropical depression at 11 p.m. Monday, Irma still managed to uproot trees and whip up floodwaters on its march through Atlanta and into Charleston. The storm’s winds — stretching misery across 650 miles and touching nine states — proved to be the deadliest factor. At least three deaths were reported in Georgia and one in South Carolina, most from heavy tree limbs crushing victims.

The U.S. death toll stood at 10 early Tuesday. Six Florida residents died as the storm’s wrath pounded the state Sunday.

Irma shut down Atlanta’s airport and was still on track to inflict damage as it shifted northwest and headed to Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Communities there braced for an onslaught of bad weather and winds of up to 35 mph.

More than 1.4 million people in Georgia were without power and another 200,000 in South Carolina suffered a similar fate.

In Florida more than 6.5 million homes and businesses lost power and 220,000 people remained in shelters.

Airplanes were grounded, stranding thousands and keeping countless Floridians from returning home — although both Miami International Airport and Orlando International Airport targeted Tuesday for reopening.

Irma and Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 storm Aug. 25, have done damage estimated at between $150 billion and $200 billion, ABC News reported, citing

ISLAND DESPERATION:

Moody’s Analytics.

Authorities were trying to grasp the extent of the destruction Monday.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said there was “devastation” in the Florida Keys.

“I just hope everyone survived,” he said after after a gut-wrenching flyover in a military aircraft.

Nearly every mobile home in the Keys was overturned, he said. Splintered pieces of boats were on land. Water, sewer and electric utility services were knocked out.

Jim Mooney, the mayor of Islamorada, guessed it would take six months for his Keys community to get “halfway back” to normal.

The storm “has been pretty devastating,” he told ABC’s WPLG.

“It’s going to be a shock to people who are used to seeing lush tropical settings of the Florida Keys.”

Tom and Joey Fago, a father and son who decided to ride out the storm on a boat at Marathon in the Keys, were reported missing by family on Facebook.

Irma made its first U.S. landfall just after 9 a.m. on Sunday at Cudjoe Key. The Category 4 storm’s more powerful eastern side lashed the Upper and Middle Keys, where the destruction was reported to be the most severe. The storm moved over warm water after leaving the Keys and made a second landfall as a Category 3 storm on Marco Island, near Naples, a few hours later, around 3:30 p.m.