National Post (National Edition)
HURRICANE IRMA MAKES LANDFALL
Irma is now a category 5 hurricane, the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic, with maximum sustained winds of 298 kilometres per hour. By week’s end, Irma is expected to make landfall in the Florida Keys. U.S. President Donald Trump has declared emergencies in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
THE COST
Barclays has estimated insured losses from Irma in a worst-case scenario at US$130 billion. Were Irma to hit Miami with the same force as a Category 4 storm that struck in 1926, insured losses would reach US$125 billion to US$130 billion, Jay Gelb, an analyst at Barclays, wrote. Uninsured losses would be on top of that. Losses from Katrina, both insured and uninsured, reached US$160 billion in 2017 dollars after it slammed into New Orleans in 2005.
OTHER STORMS
Only three Category 5 hurricanes have hit the contiguous 48 U.S. states, according to Weather Underground: the Labour Day Hurricane of 1935 that devastated the Florida Keys, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Andrew that cut across Florida in 1992. Andrew killed 65 people and inflicting US$26 billion in damage. It was at the time the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.
CELEBRITIES
Billionaire Richard Branson has decided to brave the storm of the century in the comfort of the wine cellar on his private island. The hurricane was expected to roll over Branson’s Necker Island Wednesday night.
Irma is also expected to hammer islands where celebs like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Johnny Depp, David Copperfield, Oprah Winfrey and even U.S. President Donald Trump have tropical getaways.
TRAFFIC JAM
Florida residents picked store shelves clean and long lines formed at gas pumps Wednesday as Irma steamed toward the Sunshine State. An estimated 25,000 people or more left the Florida Keys after all visitors were ordered to clear out, causing bumper-to-bumper traffic on the single highway that links the chain of low-lying islands to the mainland.
NEW DISASTER
Puerto Rico, already dealing with a financial disaster, now faces a natural one. Hurricane Irma raises the prospect of costly damage to a poverty-wracked island of 3.5 million residents that collapsed into a record-setting bankruptcy in May.
“After 10 years of a recession, the island is not at all prepared for a disaster like Irma,” aid Matt Fabian, a partner with Municipal Market Analytics. “And Irma may permanently shrink Puerto Rico and push the island even deeper into poverty.”