Millions lack power; drawbridges blocked
Hurricane Irma toppled trees, flooded streets and left millions across the state without power. After the storm passed through most of the state, residents emerged from their homes to survey the damage left behind.
In South Florida, where more than two-thirds of customers had no electricity Monday, people were well aware that they were the lucky ones.
Police in Broward County turned motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians away from the bridges crossing the Intracoastal Waterway, keeping them from areas where downed power lines posed a threat to life, and sand pushed onto the shore made driving difficult.
Hollywood Police Chief Tomas Sanchez said it may take several days to clear the power lines and sweep up the sand. “We’re asking people to stay inside because
there’s still a lot of live wires and loose debris,” he said. “We don’t want people to get hurt.”
By mid-afternoon, activity along the city’s Broadwalk began to resume, and restaurant and shop owners began to clean up.
Farther south and along the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Irma beat Florida relentlessly from the time it made landfall in the Keys on Sunday morning as a Category 4 until it sauntered across the Georgia state line a day later as a tropical storm.
A grinding chorus of chain saws and generators kicked in quickly after Irma’s roar left Sweetwater, a small, mostly Spanishspeaking town west of Miami where streets were swamped, fences and trees fell, cars got stuck in floodwater and shed roofs bent like tin foil.
“My entire patio was underwater, and in the street it was two-to-three feet high,” said Jesus Castillo, 50, who moved to the neighborhood nine years ago.
Some of the most severe damage reports came from the Keys.
Gov. Rick Scott said that the damage along the southwest coast in such places as Naples and Fort Myers was not as bad as feared. But in the Keys, he said, “there is devastation.”
“It’s horrible, what we saw,” he said. “I know for our entire state, especially the Keys, it’s going to be a long road.”
Authorities sent an aircraft carrier and other Navy ships to Florida to help with search-and-rescue operations Monday as a flyover of the hurricane-battered Keys yielded what the governor said were scenes of devastation. Monroe County has a population of under 80,000. Officials estimate a little more than 10,000 chose not to evacuate.
“I just hope everyone survived,” Scott said.
He said boats were cast ashore, water, sewers and electricity were knocked out, and “I don’t think I saw one trailer park where almost everything wasn’t overturned.” Authorities also struggled to clear the single highway connecting the string of islands to the mainland.
On the Gulf Coast, most of Marco Island’s estimated 17,000 residents evacuated to shelters, but about 3,000 to 5,000 stayed, according to the Miami Herald. Nearly every roof on the island was damaged, and what the wind didn’t harm, the downed trees did.
People in the heavily populated Tampa-St. Petersburg area were braced for its first direct hit from a major hurricane since 1921. But by the time it struck in the middle of the night Monday, its winds were down to 100 mph or less, and the damage was nowhere near as bad as expected.
In Redington Shores, west of Tampa, Carl Roberts spent a sleepless night riding out Irma in his 17th-floor beachfront condo. After losing power late Sunday, he made it through the worst of the storm shaken but unhurt. “The hurricane winds lashed the shutters violently, throughout the night,” he wrote in a text message, “making sleep impossible.”
And as Irma left Florida, she took a final swipe at the Jacksonville area, with a storm surge that brought the region some of the worst flooding it’s ever seen. At least 46 people were pulled from swamped homes.
Over the next two days, Irma is expected to push to the northwest, into Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Residents who have serious property damage are encouraged by the federal government to register with the Federal Emergency Management Administration by visiting DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 800-621-3362.
Back in South Florida, the effort to return to normalcy had just begun.
Stores began to reopen — Publix supremarkets worked to open all but a handful of their doors by noon. Some closed as early as 5 p.m. in northern Broward County, citing an 8 p.m. curfew.
Broward had lifted its countywide curfew Monday, though at least one city, Hollywood, imposed its own from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to keep traffic off the roads for safety and repair workers.
Palm Beach County’s curfew remained in place from dusk until dawn.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said as he toured the county Monday morning to assess the situation he saw general adherence to the rule requiring people to treat non-working traffic lights as four-way stops. But, he said, far too many are barrellng through the intersections without stopping.
He said he suspects it’s a combination of people not knowing how to operate — and some who simply don’t care. “Getting somewhere five minutes early” is not worth the potential price of a catastrophic accident, he said.
Broward County Mayor Barbara Shareif said she could not promise problemfree passage on the roads by Tuesday, when many people will be returning to work.
“We have some major road blockages throughout Broward County,” Sharief said. “We’re clearing them as fast as we can.”
County officials have said most traffic lights are out along A1A and there are widespread reports of trees down.
“This is not the time to be sightseeing,” said Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Timothy Keefe. “We still have debris and flood water and downed signals and power lines.”
The situation and warnings were similar in Palm Beach.
“We are cautioning individuals that are out and about that there are still dangerous situations, we have electrical lines down,” County Administrator Verdenia Baker said of blocked streets and many traffic lights that aren’t working. “The less traffic on the roads the better, the safer you will be.”
Only 436 people remained in local shelters as of 3 p.m., with the majority of those in county’s special needs shelter. Officials say they are checking first to make sure anyone who depends on power will have it upon returning home.
“We don’t push people out the door,” Johnson said of a shelter population that included 17,000 evacuees at one point. “For the most part, the shelters are closed.”
Staff writers Anne Geggis, Larry Barszewski, Brittany Wallman and Marc Freeman contributed to this report, which was supplemented with information from the Associated Press and the Miami Herald.