Mother of all storms

Killer ’cane Irma wipes out Barbuda 600,000 without power in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Irma left a devastating trail of destruction in the Caribbean on Wednesday, lashing Puerto Rico with fierce rain and punishing winds after all but wiping out the tiny island of Barbuda.

The monstrous Category 5 storm — the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, with sustained 185-mph winds — has already claimed the lives of at least three people as it moves northwest toward Florida.

Early Wednesday, Irma passed directly over Barbuda, killing at least one person and destroying 90 percent of structures on the island, which is home to about 1,700 people, all of whom lost electric power.

“It is totally destroyed, 90 percent, at least,” Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne reported.

“As it stands, Barbuda is practically uninhabitable,” he told Antigua/Barbuda Broadcasting Services, adding that the destruction was “heart-wrenching.”

The hurricane also caused widespread damage to the islands of St. Martin and St. Barts, destroying homes and government buildings and killing at least two people.

“We will have victims to lament, and the material damage ... is considerable,” French President Emmanuel Macron said of St. Martin — half of which is French territory, half of which is Dutch — and the French territory of St. Barts. “I can already tell you the toll will be harsh and cruel.”

St. Barts Sen. Michel Magras told the UK’s Daily Express that the island is “devastated” and “apocalyptic.”

After hitting smaller islands, Irma on Wednesday evening churned toward the Virgin Islands and the northern coast of Puerto Rico, where residents earlier had steeled themselves for major damage.

“We have to prepare for the worst,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said. “If we don’t, it could be devastating.”

Although Puerto Ricans were spared a direct strike — Irma’s eye passed 85 miles north-northwest of San Juan late Wednesday — more than 600,000 people were without electricity and 50,000 without running water.

Fourteen hospitals had to rely on generators after losing electricity with power lines down.

“The dangerousness of this event is like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Rosselló said. “A lot of infrastructure won’t be able to withstand this kind of force.”

The storm had company. For the first time in seven years, three hurricanes were spinning simultaneously through the region on Thursday morning.

As Irma battered the Caribbean, Hurricane Katia was hovering in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, Hurricane José had formed in the open Atlantic, and forecasters did not see it as an immediate threat to land.

The National Hurricane Center said Irma’s “extremely dangerous core” would next move just north of the coast of Hispaniola — the island comprising Haiti and the Dominican Republic— on Thursday, and be near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas by Thursday evening.

“Some fluctuations in intensity are likely during the next day or two, but Irma is forecast to remain a powerful Category 4 or 5 hurricane during the next couple of days,” the center added.

In the Bahamas, emergency evacuations were ordered for six southern islands.

“This is the largest such evacuation in the history of the country,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said.

As Irma delivered a punishing blow to the Caribbean, island residents hunkered down in their homes and at shelters.

Kennedy Banda, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, told CNN all the windows in his home were destroyed and he was taking shelter in a bathroom.

“Everything is blown out,” he said. “Everything is gone.”

While the hurricane could still change course and lose some strength in the coming days, it is forecast to hit south Florida by early Sunday and could travel up the coast, hitting Savannah, Ga., and the Carolinas.

“This could easily be the most costly storm in US history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago” with Tropical Storm Harvey wreaking havoc in southeast Texas, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

At least 1,074 flights have been canceled to and from the Caribbean due to Irma, which broke a record Wednesday for sustained wind speed, maintaining 185-mph winds for more than 24 hours.

That’s 28 mph above the level required to be a Category 5 hurricane, the worst there is. There is no Category 6.