Storm Gains Strength as It Nears Florida
Read the latest with Sunday’s live updates on Hurricane Irma.
Hurricane
Irma gained strength early Sunday as it bore down on the Florida Keys,
with officials upgrading it to a Category 4 storm and reporting maximum
sustained winds of 130 miles per hour.
The
hurricane’s eye was expected to cross the Lower Florida Keys during the
next several hours, the National Hurricane Center said at 2 a.m.
Irma
had been downgraded to a Category 3 storm as it churned toward Florida
on Saturday, after leaving a trail of death and destruction across the
Caribbean. Florida officials directed 6.5 million residents to leave
their homes in one of the largest emergency evacuations in American
history.
On
Saturday evening, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida warned that the state
could get as much as 18 inches of rain, with the Keys getting up to 25
inches. Southwest Florida could see a storm surge of 15 feet above
ground level, and entire neighborhoods stretching northward from Naples
to Tampa Bay could be submerged.
“If
you have been ordered to evacuate, you need to leave now,” Mr. Scott
said at a 6 p.m. news conference. “This is your last chance to make a
good decision.”
After
crossing the Keys on Sunday, the storm was expected to move up the west
coast of Florida before reaching Georgia on Monday afternoon. That
westward track, which was a change from earlier expectations, left some
residents and officials scrambling to find shelter. Late Saturday,
forecasters said the storm’s projected path had again shifted “ever so
slightly” west.
Irma
made landfall in Cuba on Friday evening as a Category 5 hurricane,
lashing the island’s northern coast with a direct hit, before losing
some of its force later. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to make
landfall in Cuba since 1924.
Here’s the latest:
•
More than 200,000 people in Florida were without power early Sunday
morning. Keys Energy Services, which supplies electricity to Key West
and the Lower Florida Keys, said that all of its 29,000 customers were without power.
• At least 25 people were confirmed dead in areas in the Caribbean affected by the storm.
•
In addition to an evacuation order in Miami, one of the country’s
largest evacuations, 540,000 people were told to leave the Georgia
coast. Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina have declared states
of emergency.
•
Mr. Scott said on Saturday that more than 385 shelters were open in
Florida and that more were expected to open at night. More than 76,000
people were without electricity, he said.
•
Hurricane Jose was passing farther north of the Leeward Islands than
initially predicted, and St. Martin and St. Bart’s have downgraded
hurricane warnings to tropical storm warnings. Check out our maps tracking the storm.
•
Hurricane Katia, which made landfall on Mexico’s eastern coast, was
downgraded to a tropical depression, with winds of 35 m.p.h. Two people died in a mudslide in the state of Veracruz after the storm hit, The Associated Press reported.
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Tropical storm
Residents and officials scramble for shelters
The
storm’s sudden drive to the west prompted last-minute orders for
evacuation in Collier and Lee Counties in Florida, leaving little time
for residents to pack up and find shelter.
“We
thought we were safe,” said a spokeswoman for Collier County who
declined to give her name because she was not authorized to discuss the
situation. “We thought we were safe like 36 hours ago.”
The
spokeswoman said that a forecast at 5 p.m. on Thursday caused county
officials to react, readying shelters and helping residents seeking to
evacuate.
Starting
on Saturday morning, lines that were several blocks long formed outside
of shelters such as the Germain Arena, as residents jammed inside.
In
Fort Myers, which is in Lee County, buses that were transporting people
to shelters stopped running at 3 p.m. to allow the drivers to seek
safety, potentially leaving people who had not left their homes in time.
By late Saturday afternoon, all of the shelters in Collier County were at capacity, according to local news reports.
Because of the imminent storm surge, officials told people living in
one-story homes to try to enter shelters anyway, and people in two-story
homes to seek shelter upstairs.
In
Miami-Dade County, some people who had flocked to shelters were
reassessing their situation on Saturday afternoon after learning that
the brunt of the hurricane would most likely be felt farther west.
“We’re
going home,” Virginia Lopez, an administrative assistant at Barry
University, said as she loaded her 5-year-old poodle mix, Princess, into
her Mazda outside a shelter at Highland Oaks Middle School after
spending the night there with her daughter and son-in-law. “We decided
half an hour ago. The storm has moved to Tampa, so we’re going to get a
lot of rain but it won’t be as bad. I don’t feel so scared.”
Inside,
dozens of people lay on cots and blankets in the building’s hallways
amid a stench of perspiration and vomit. Some were packing to leave but
most seemed resigned to remaining until the storm blows through.
Florida gets an early feel for what’s to come
As
Hurricane Irma steered its way toward the Florida Keys on Saturday
night, Florida began to feel its approach. The ocean began rising in Key
West, spilling into hotel parking lots and roads. In the Keys to the
north, water levels toppled over the banks of canals.
In
Miami-Dade, tree branches tumbled and fast-moving bands of powerful
rain and wind occasionally made it hard to walk. Orange County issued a
mandatory evacuation for all mobile homes.
In
Lake Worth in Palm Beach County, a tornado tore through one
neighborhood, bringing the telltale freight train rumble and clatter of
intense wind. On South Beach, palm trees tilted in the wind, their palm
fronds fluttering fiercely.
But
these ominous signs of Irma’s churn toward Florida were often
short-lived. The storm was still far offshore and not expected to be
within striking distance of the Florida Keys until the predawn hours.
Florida Keys face being cut off
In
the Florida Keys, emergency officials girded for a direct hit and
residents who did not evacuate began to take cover as the winds kicked
up sharply Saturday afternoon.
The Keys, a thin chain of low-lying islands, are especially vulnerable to Hurricane Irma’s anticipated powerful tidal surges.
The
ocean is expected to rise and hurtle into buildings and houses near the
coast. Pine Island, north of Key West, was already seeing rising seas
at noon.
Some canals were spilling their bounds and emergency responders were evacuating to the Upper Keys.
But
the worst could come after the hurricane moves on. Keys residents could
find themselves isolated from the mainland if any one of their 42
bridges gets damaged.
Residents
and emergency officials would be cut off from food, gas and other
supplies because there would be no easy way of reaching them by road.
“Just
think about the Keys for a second,” Mr. Scott warned residents at a
recent news conference. “If we lose one bridge, everything south of the
bridge, everybody’s going to be stranded. It’s going to take us a while
to get back in there to try to provide services.”
A hospital hunkers down
Hurricane
Irma has already disrupted Florida’s health systems. As of Saturday
night, 29 hospitals, 239 assisted-living centers and 56 other health
care facilities in the state were evacuated, according to Jason Mahon, a
public information officer at the Florida State Emergency Operations
Center. More than 60 shelters had been opened for people with special
needs.
Not all health organizations made the difficult choice to transfer their patients
out of Irma’s path. Tampa General Hospital, the highest level trauma
center in the region, remained open and full of patients and staff,
despite being surrounded by water on the tip of Davis Islands.
The hospital is in Zone A, the area most vulnerable to storm surge.
A
spokesman for the hospital, John Dunn, said by phone Saturday night
that staff members had arrived on Friday to stay throughout the storm
and work in shifts to care for the hospital’s approximately 700
patients.
Mr.
Dunn said the hospital had submarine doors to protect against flooding,
and generators had been elevated from the ground floor to a higher
level. They are capable of powering air-conditioning for parts of the
buildings, he said.
He
added that the hospital’s leaders had spoken in the past with local
emergency officials and with the Federal Emergency Management Agency
about how the hospital might evacuate. “There are not many resources
available to be able to evacuate large numbers of patients,” he said.
Cuba gets a direct hit
Irma
slammed into Cuba on Friday night as a Category 5 hurricane, causing
widespread destruction. Meteorologists were expecting the storm to tack
north earlier, and were not predicting a direct hit.
The eye of the storm passed directly through the archipelago of keys on the northern coast in the central part of the island.
The
damage to its central provinces was substantial: Power lines were
brought down in Camaguey, houses were destroyed in Ciego de Ávila and
fishing towns have been submerged in Villa Clara.
An ‘apocalyptic doomsday scene’ on the British Virgin Islands
With
communications limited on the British Virgin Islands, the full scope of
the damage from Hurricane Irma was still revealing itself. On Saturday,
at least five deaths were reported by the governor, Gus Jaspert. With
communication on the island all but severed, officials were still
working to assess the full scale of devastation.
Residents
of Tortola, the largest island, said buildings were leveled and roads
were washed away. People have limited food and water.
The
British government said it sent 20 tons of aid to the affected areas,
including shelter kits and solar lanterns aboard a naval ship.
Catherine
Clayton, whose family owns a hotel on Tortola in Josiah’s Bay, said 25
people — including neighbors whose homes were decimated — were sheltered
in the two remaining inhabitable rooms at the once eight-room Tamarind
Hotel.
“It is like an apocalyptic doomsday scene here,” she said. “No trees, leaves or greenery.”
