Florida hit by Hurricane Irma’s force

Mass evacuation as monster storm makes landfall

HURRICANE Irma regained strength yesterday as it began pummeling Florida, threatening almost the entire southeastern US state after cutting a deadly path of destruction through the Caribbean.

The storm, packing of winds of 210km/h, was upgraded to a Category 4 storm as it closed in on the Florida Keys island chain, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

Tens of thousands of Floridians were hunkering down in shelters for a direct hit from the monster storm.

More than 6.3 million – almost a third of the state’s population – were ordered to evacuate.

For those still at home, it was already too late to escape the wrath of what could be the worst hurricane in storm-prone Florida.

“If you have been ordered to evacuate anywhere in the state, you need to leave right now. Not tonight. Not in an hour. Now. You are running out of time to make a decision,” Governor Rick Scott said hours before wind gusts began to lash the Keys.

Florida Power and Light said more than 170 000 homes and businesses in the state had lost power, as the storm churned about 115km south-southeast of Key West.

Its eye was expected to cross the Lower Florida Keys within hours before moving near or along the peninsular state’s west coast, where it threatened storm surges of up to 4.5 metres. – enough to cover a house.

The Kennedy Space Centre was closed.

At least 25 people have been killed since Irma began its devastating march through the Caribbean earlier this week.

Terrified Cubans who rode out Irma in coastal towns – after the storm made landfall on Friday as a maximum-strength Category 5 storm on the Camaguey archipelago – reported deafening winds, uprooted trees and power lines, and blown-off rooftops.

In Florida, cities on both the east and west coasts, took on the appearance of ghost towns.

A tornado funnel cloud has already formed off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, with the NHC warning that a few more were possible in south and central Florida.

Warning that Irma would be worse than Hurricane Andrew – which killed 65 people in 1992 – Scott, Florida’s governor, said all 20.6 million Floridians should prepare to flee.

The storm smashed through a string of Caribbean islands, beginning with tiny Barbuda on Wednesday, followed by the holiday islands of St Barts and St Martin.

Also affected were the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos.

The Bahamas were spared Irma’s worst.

Another powerful storm, Hurricane Jose, had been heading towards the same string of Caribbean islands that Irma pummeled in recent days, but the area received a welcome reprieve when the storm began to gradually weaken and shift course towards the north.

The deteriorating weather had grounded aircraft and prevented boats from bringing relief supplies to hard-hit islands.

The US military was mobilising thousands of troops and deploying several large ships to aid with evacuations and humanitarian relief, as the US Air Force removed scores of planes from the southern US. — AFP