‘We can’t save you,’ Florida governor warns
After mangling islands, storm screams for mainland
Hurricane Irma, KEY WEST blowing Category 5 winds, moved within striking distance of South Florida, where residents boarded up homes, grabbed dwindling supplies of bottled water and battled fuel shortages as evacuees sought to get out of harm’s way.
Irma, the most powerful Atlantic storm ever, left a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean as it howled past Puerto Rico and Hispaniola on a steady course toward the U.S. mainland.
Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, called the island “barely habitable,” and parts of St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control, were destroyed.
The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane
watch for South Florida.
Forecasters waited for the storm to get closer before issuing a formal hurricane warning and designating a likely path for landfall, but they warned that Irma could slam head-on into the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people and roar through the state’s Atlantic coast into Georgia and South Carolina.
Officials issued evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people in the Florida Keys and in exposed or low-lying parts of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.
“Leave the Keys, and get out,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday. “We can’t save you once the storm hits.”
Approaching the mainland, Irma’s sustained winds eased slightly — from 185 mph to 175 mph — but remained a full-force, Category 5 storm as it chewed through a string of Caribbean islands.
As Florida braced for the storm’s arrival, Scott called Irma “powerful and deadly” and said the state’s biggest problem was fuel availability for people who had not left.
State and federal officials waived regulations to speed up delivery of fuel from Florida ports and neighboring states, he said. “We know fuel is very important,” he said. “We are devoting every state resource to addressing this.”
He said police escorted fuel delivery trucks in some areas to help speed them through traffic snarls.
He urged evacuees to take only what they needed.
Scott said the state would provide transport for those who do not have enough fuel to get out.
“This is not just a storm you
“Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are ... cut off from the outside world.” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, regarding damage on St. Martin
can sit and wait through,” he said.
Scott warned that Irma would be stronger and larger than Hurricane Andrew, the Category 5 storm that killed 65 people in Florida, destroyed more than 63,500 homes and caused $26.5 billion in damage in 1992.
At least 10 people have been killed by Irma, and authorities struggled to get aid to the hardest hit islands.
Authorities expected the death toll to rise.
Communication with areas hit by Irma has been difficult, and information on damage trickled out.
The British government described the situation in Anguilla as “critical.”
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told France Info radio that the toll on St. Martin and St. Barthélemy would probably climb.
Rescue teams hadn’t finished their inspection of the islands.
Collomb said 100,000 food rations have been sent to the islands, the equivalent of four days’ worth.
“It’s a tragedy, we’ll need to rebuild both islands,” he said. “Most of the schools have been destroyed.”
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said there are no reports of casualties on the Dutch side of St. Martin, but he noted that the damage was severe, and there was “wide-scale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.”
“There is no power, no gasoline, no running water,” Rutte said. “Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark, in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world.”
On Puerto Rico, more than half of the island was without power, leaving 900,000 in the dark and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said. Fourteen hospitals used generators, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.
Before the storm, residents on the mainland either hunkered down or fled the most threatened areas.
In Fort Myers, Fla., police reported traffic congestion caused by people buying plywood and other storm supplies. Drivers were backed up for about a mile in one direction and a quartermile in another. Some spent three hours in line.
Andrea Kopcok flew in from Canada to help board up her parent’s Fort Myers Beach home. “They’re Canadian snowbirds,” she said. “They sent the kids down to do this.”
Georgia and South Carolina braced for the worst. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, expanding a state of emergency to 30 counties, ordered evacuations along the coast, including Savannah, pop. l46,000. The Peach State hasn’t been hit by a Category 3 or greater hurricane since 1898.