Nowhere to hide
Raging winds, rain march north: ‘Everything is under water’
Hurricane Irma marched relentlessly up Florida’s Gulf coast Sunday after slamming through the Florida Keys as the meteorological behemoth’s slashing rain and roaring winds rolled toward Georgia and beyond.
The storm made landfall on the Florida Keys and later near Naples, but Florida’s eastern coast was far from spared Sunday from the almost 400-milewide storm. In Miami, high winds snapped construction cranes and water swept down streets like rivers. In Palm Bay, 175 miles to the north, a tornado destroyed six mobile homes. Water rose by 4 feet in 30 minutes in some places.
In Miami-Dade County, about 850,000 homes were without power, prompting Mayor Carlos Gimenez to impose a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew. Looters proved to be a problem, with thousands of businesses and homes empty due to evacuations.
“We’re going to be monitoring any types of crimes,” Miami Police Commander Freddie Cruz told USA TODAY.
Millions of Floridians evacuated ahead of the storm, and more than 2 million power customers — about 5 million people — were without electricity Sunday.
“We’re going to get through this,” a grim but determined Gov. Rick Scott told workers in the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he added.
Irma slammed into Cudjoe Key on Sunday morning as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 130 mph. That marked the first time two consecutive
Category 4 hurricanes have hit the United States after Hurricane Harvey in Texas last month. Irma is also Florida’s first major hurricane since Wilma in 2005.
Larry Kahn, editor of the Keynoter, said the power was out and there was no running water at Marathon High School, a “refuge of last resort” on the middle Keys.
“Everything is under water,” Kahn said. “I mean everything.”
The storm sent 120-mph winds to the Naples area after making landfall on Marco Island on Sunday afternoon.
The east shift didn’t change conditions for Central Florida and the east coast, Hurricane Center acting Director Ed Rappaport said. Those areas expected at least tropical storm conditions, stronger gusts and tornadoes.
The storm claimed at least three lives in Florida. A Hardee County sheriff ’s deputy and a prison employee died in a vehicle crash related to Irma on Sunday, officials said. Deputy Julie Bridges was on her way to pick up shelter supplies when the vehicle she was driving collided with another vehicle carrying Sgt. Joseph Ossman, who was reporting for work at the Hardee Correctional Institution.
One person died in a single vehicle accident off a highway Sunday evening in Orange County, county Fire Chief Otto Drozd said.
President Trump spoke to the governors of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, and has been speaking regularly with Florida’s Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the White House said. Trump said he was encouraged by the response to the disaster this far.
“I think it’s been going really well,” Trump said. “FEMA has been incredible. We’re working very well with the governor and the other governors in the sur- rounding states.”
In one of the biggest U.S. evacuations ever, about 6.3 million people in Florida — more than one-quarter of the state’s population — were told to clear out from threatened areas. An additional 540,000 were directed to move away from the Georgia coast.
More than 10,000 flights were canceled, airports were closed, ocean cruises diverted and Disney resorts shut down. The world’s busiest airport in Atlanta could see disruptions as the storm moves north.
A shift in Irma’s projected track allowed Miami to dodge a direct hit but put the Tampa Bay in the bull’s-eye, triggering mandatory evacuation orders for an additional quarter-million peo- ple. The track made the TampaSt. Petersburg area the target of a major hurricane for the first time in almost a century.
Forecasters warned of storm surges of 10 to 15 feet in the Naples area and 5 to 8 feet around Tampa-St. Petersburg.
On Florida’s eastern coast, the weather service confirmed several tornadoes passed through the region, but the extent of the damage was not yet clear.
Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, and its
2 million residents remain under a curfew until 10 a.m. Monday. The town of Davie, population
100,000, reported that a wastewater pump station lost power overnight and was expected to overflow, raising fears that sewage could contaminate standing water in neighborhoods, officials said.
Emergency management officials were concerned that east coast residents who evacuated were opting to go back home after Irma’s track veered toward the Gulf coast.
The storm, however, was big enough to bring devastation across the state. Brevard County Communications Director Don Walker said some people left the county’s hurricane shelters, but he cautioned patience.