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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Environment
Claire Phipps (now), Alan Yuhas and Matthew Weaver (earlier)

Cuba lashed by category five winds as storm heads to US – as it happened

This live blog is closing. Follow the latest developments on our new live blog:

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma, which briefly dipped to category four intensity, is now back up to category five and has made landfall in Cuba.
  • Irma is now forecast to hit the Florida Keys on Sunday morning, moving over south-west Florida by Sunday afternoon, then crossing the entire state over approximately 30 hours of ferocious winds and rains.
  • On Saturday, Irma continues to rake the north coast of Cuba, where it first hit the Camaguey archipelago on Friday night. It is the first category five storm to make landfall in Cuba for almost a century.
  • Saturday will also see tropical storm-force winds lash Florida, ahead of Irma’s arrival. Outer rain bands have already reached the peninsula.
  • Florida has ordered 5.6 million people – a quarter of the state’s population – to evacuate, warning that those who do not leave cannot expect rescue services to reach them once Irma hits. A curfew comes into effect in Palm Beach from 3pm on Saturday.
  • Florida governor Rick Scott warned on Friday:

If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk.

  • In Georgia, 540,000 people on the coast received mandatory evacuation orders.
  • The Bahamas meteorological office said the main island of New Providence had been spared the worst as Irma passed close by, but the southern Bahamas had been more badly hit.
  • At least 23 people have been confirmed killed in the Caribbean so far. The first victim of Irma was two-year-old Carl Junior Francis in Barbuda. Eleven died on French St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, two on Dutch St Maarten and one in Anguilla. A teenage surfer died off Barbados in waves churned up by Irma, and four deaths were reported on the British Virgin Islands that have yet to be corroborated.
  • Clear-up efforts on Caribbean islands – to which Britain, France and the Netherlands have sent support – have been hampered by the approaching Hurricane Jose.
  • Jose is forecast to hit islands already ravaged by Irma – including Barbuda, Anguilla, St Maarten, St Martin and St Barthélemy – from Saturday. Hurricane Jose, currently a category four, is “almost category five”, the US National Hurricane Center has said.
  • But Katia – formerly a category one hurricane as it made landfall in Mexico – has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Updated

Cuba’s Meteorology Institute confirms the US National Hurricane Center verdict: Irma has made landfall there at category five intensity.

A report on its website reads:

Hurricane Irma is striking Camaguey and Ciego de Avila as a category five hurricane …

The Camaguey weather station recorded a 200kph (124mph) gust of wind from the northwest, causing the wind gauge to be destroyed.

In Cayo Coco a gust of 187km per hour [was recorded]; in Nuevitas a gust of 161km per hour and in Camaguey of 123km per hour.

Here is what the latest forecast says about Hurricane Irma’s predicted path:

Irma is moving toward the west near 12mph (19kph). A turn toward the northwest is expected by late today [Saturday].

On the forecast track, the centre of Irma will move near the north coast of Cuba today, near the Florida Keys Sunday morning, and then near the southwest coast of Florida Sunday afternoon.

The US National Hurricane Center says Jose remains a category four storm as it heads towards the Leeward Islands on Saturday.

But Katia – formerly a category one hurricane as it made landfall in Mexico – has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Latest hurricane warnings

A 2am local time advisory from the US National Hurricane Center confirms that Irma is still moving directly over Cuba’s Camaguey archipelago and remains at category five.

Irma is currently 85 miles (135km) east-south-east of the Cuban northern city of Caibarién, and about 275 miles (440km) from Miami, with wind speeds of 160mph (260kph).

Hurricane warnings are in place for the following areas:

  • Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, and Matanzas
  • North-western and central Bahamas and Ragged Island
  • Florida Keys
  • Lake Okeechobee
  • Florida Bay
  • Volusia/Brevard county line southward around the Florida peninsula to Anclote River

Basil Dean, from the Bahamas meteorology department in Nassau, says the effects of Irma in some parts of the Bahamas has not been as severe as was feared (the full force of the hurricane was instead felt in Cuba).

Dean told CNN:

Right now we’re having some light rains here in the capital … we don’t expect much more than we’re experiencing right now, even though we’re under a hurricane warning.

New Providence [the island where Nassau and most of the population are] is pretty much well to the east of the centre circulation and we anticipate the condition will be pretty much the same: occasional rain showers developing here and there.

But, he added, the island group did not escape unscathed:

Ragged Island would have been the last island in the Bahamas that would have experienced the hurricane-force winds.

In the south-east Bahamas, including the Turks and Caicos Islands, there’s been a major impact from Irma … The eye passed directly over Ragged Island.

Updated

Dutch naval commander Peter Jan de Vin has shared images of relief efforts on Sint Maarten, which is administered by the Netherlands.

Dialysis patients were airlifted from the stricken island on Friday:

Dutch troops dropped leaflets from helicopters warning residents of the approaching Hurricane Jose and advising them to move to shelters:

The evacuation ongoing in Florida and beyond is among the largest in US history.

In Florida, 5.6 million people – that’s more than one-quarter of the state’s population – have been ordered to leave,

In Georgia, 540,000 people on the coast received mandatory evacuation orders.

Florida governor Rick Scott warned on Friday:

If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk.

Officials said they would not risk sending rescue and emergency services personnel into the heart of the storm while it raged.

With Irma’s outer rain bands already brushing the Florida coast, Saturday morning is forecast to see the first tropical storm-force winds. They will build until Hurricane Irma arrives in its full intensity – forecast on Sunday morning in the Florida Keys.

Updated

Irma brushes Florida

The outer bands of Hurricane Irma have reached the US, with rain and increased wind speeds in south Florida and the Keys.

The centre of the storm remains over northern Cuba, where the Camaguey archipelago has borne the brunt.

Hurricane Jose has moved closer to category five strength, with tops winds of 155mph (250kmh) as it heads towards the eastern Caribbean islands ravaged by Hurricane Irma.

Jose was about 265 miles (430km) east-south-east of the northern Leeward Islands early on Saturday and is forecast to hit the outlying Caribbean islands later in the day.

The US national hurricane centre said that “air force hurricane hunters find Jose even stronger … almost a category 5 hurricane”.

It issued hurricane warnings for the eastern Caribbean islands of Barbuda and Anguilla, Sint Maarten, St Martin and St Barthélemy. A hurricane watch was in effect for Antigua, while tropical storm watch was in effect for Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, British Virgin Islands, and St Thomas and St John.

Many of Irma’s victims have already fled their devastated islands on ferries and fishing boats for fear of Jose, which is currently ranked as a category four storm that could punish some places all over again this weekend.

“I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to know that further damage is imminent,” said inspector Frankie Thomas of the Antigua and Barbuda police.

When will Irma reach Florida?

These graphics from the US National Hurricane Center show first, the most likely arrival times of tropical storm-force winds (which will precede Irma’s full-strength landfall), and second, the earliest times such winds could arrive.

Although the hurricane itself is forecast to arrive on Sunday morning, Florida will be seeing extremely strong winds from Saturday morning, sweeping up through the state.

Most likely arrival times in Florida of tropical storm-force winds of Hurricane Irma
Earliest arrival times in Florida of tropical storm-force winds of Hurricane Irma

Updated

Cuba – at just after midnight – is currently bearing the brunt of Irma, as it made landfall in the north of the country and returned to category five intensity.

Reuters reports:

The scenes along Cuba’s north central coast were gradually coming to resemble the horrors of those of other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma barrelled in for a direct hit at Ciego de Avila province around midnight.

Choppy seas, grey skies, sheets of rain, bending palm trees, huge waves crashing over sea walls and downed power lines filled state-run television’s evening newscast.

Irma was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 10ft (3m) on parts of Cuba’s northern coast.

Meteorologists warned that by Saturday morning scenes of far greater devastation were sure to emerge as Irma worked her way along the northern coast westward through Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara provinces.

The area is home to pristine keys with more than 50 hotels and fine beaches, vital money-makers for the cash-strapped government.

Residents in the central province of Camaguey hunkered down on Friday night. “There are really strong gusts of wind. It is pouring off and on, and the lights are out,” Anaida Gonzalez, a retired nurse, said by telephone.

Palm trees sway in Caibarién, Cuba, before Irma arrived.
Palm trees in Caibarién, Cuba, before Irma arrived. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Palm Beach county curfew

Florida’s Palm Beach county has said it will impose a curfew from 3pm Saturday, ahead of the arrival of tropical storm-force winds.

Officials do not want people out in the streets – or risk them needing rescue or emergency services – as Irma approaches. Those who have not evacuated are urged to seek safe shelter.

Timothy Harris, prime minister of St Kitts & Nevis, has warned that the approaching Hurricane Jose will affect the islands – but, as with Irma, they should escape its worst effects.

Senior meteorological officer Elmo Burke says outer rain bands from Jose will reach St Kitts & Nevis overnight and into Saturday, with its closest passing late afternoon on Saturday. Sunday, at least, will bring better weather conditions.

Florida governor Rick Scott has issued another plea for residents in evacuation zones – which cover 5.6 million people – to leave.

Scott says evacuation orders are also being issued further up the west coast of the state, given forecasts predicting that Irma could now track west.

And he warns that Floridians must be

prepared to locate to the closest available shelter within their counties if they do not evacuate by noon tomorrow [Saturday].

There are currently no shelters on the vulnerable Florida Keys, whose residents have been told to go.

But officials said on Friday they would open four “shelters of last resort” on Saturday at 7pm for those who had not evacuated.

No services will be available at those shelters, as most officials will have left the Keys.

Hurricane Katia makes landfall in Mexico

With Irma returning to category five, and Jose close to it, a third hurricane has just made landfall – though with thankfully lesser intensity.

Hurricane Katia, which is category one, has just made landfall in Mexico, north of Tecolutla, with wind speeds of 75mph (120kph).

The US National Hurricane Center reassures that:

Rapid weakening is forecast during the next 24 hours.

Here is Irma making landfall in Cuba, where the hurricane has hit the Camaguey archipelago, just off the northern coast.

Irma forecast to hit Florida on Sunday

The NHC forecast says Irma is now predicted to move to the Florida Keys on Sunday morning local time, then to the south-west coast of Florida by Sunday afternoon.

The latest NHC update has upgraded Irma back to category five. Here are the key points:

  • Irma is “making landfall on the Camaguey archipelago of Cuba as a category five hurricane”.
  • Hurricane warnings have been extended in Florida northward on the east coast of Florida to the Volusia/Brevard county line, and on the west coast of Florida to Anclote River.
  • Irma currently has wind speeds of 160mph (260kph).
  • Storm surge warnings have been extended northward on the east coast of Florida to the Volusia/Brevard county line, and on the west coast of Florida to Anclote River, including Tampa Bay.

Hurricane Irma back up to category five

The US National Hurricane Center confirms that Irma, which dipped slightly to category four, has returned to category five intensity.

Irma has made landfall in Cuba.

With Hurricane Jose hot on the heels of Irma – which left 90% of the island of Barbuda devastated – almost all of its population of around 1,400 people has been evacuated to the larger sister island of Antigua.

Jose 'almost a category 5 hurricane'

The latest update from the US National Hurricane Center, which is monitoring Hurricane Jose, due to hit the already stricken islands of Barbuda and Anguilla on Saturday, says it is close to becoming a category 5 storm.

Jose is currently 265 miles (430km) from the Leeward Islands, with wind speeds of 155mph (250kph).

Where are the 5.6 million people told to evacuate their Florida homes and hotels going? Associated Press has talked to some of them:

Floridians fleeing Hurricane Irma have turned freeways across the south-east US into red ribbons of brake lights as they head to Atlanta, Montgomery or Nashville to bunk with relatives, stay at campgrounds or grab hotels before the massive storm makes landfall.

Because Interstate 75 north leads straight to Atlanta, thousands of the evacuees have funneled into the city. Others trekked on to Tennessee.

“We just packed the car up again … and we’re going to Memphis,” Suzanne Pallot of Miami said. Pallot traveled 21 hours from Miami to Atlanta, arriving Thursday in a Mazda SUV packed with four other people, their luggage and two cats.

In Florida, they found lines for gas 100 to 150 cars long. Pallot and her companions started looking for an available hotel room in Ocala, Florida, and went nearly 200 miles into Georgia. “There was absolutely nothing.”

Traffic on the northbound lanes of Florida’s Turnpike on Friday.
Traffic on the northbound lanes of Florida’s Turnpike on Friday. Photograph: Stephen M. Dowell/AP

Monica Scandlen took a flight from Orlando into Nashville with her nine-year-old daughter.

“You could tell they weren’t Disney families, because we all looked sort of last minute and a little worried,” said Scandlen, who is staying with friends in Franklin, Tennessee. “There were a lot more pets than I’m used to seeing.”

Evacuees were being welcomed at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, which all opened vast campgrounds to Irma refugees.

John Glowacki of Bonita Springs said he drove north on I-75 “sometimes at 5mph, sometimes at 55, but it took us two days to get here. All the campgrounds from the Florida border to north of Atlanta are all filled, but we heard that we might be able to come to the Atlanta speedway.”

Further north, in Knoxville, Tennessee, tourism officials welcomed evacuee. Some hotels were offering cheaper rates for guests fleeing the storm.

Some people offered to open their homes to evacuees. Brittany Baugh, an Orlando native living in Nashville, set up a “Florida to Nashville Hurricane Evacuees” group on Facebook for people to offer and find places to stay. More than 500 people have joined.

Georgia officials hope to have more than 50 shelters with 7,000 beds available by Saturday, said Homer Bryson, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.

Even more drivers will be headed to central Georgia on Saturday, when state officials turn all lanes of Interstate 16 into a westbound evacuation route for residents along Georgia’s coast.

Power is out in Caibarién and other areas along the northern coast of Cuba

Heavy winds and rains are due to continue there throughout Friday night – it’s currently around 10.30pm local time – and into Saturday.

Satellite images of Barbuda, the island first hit by Irma’s full force, appear to show it stripped of vegetation. The image on the right is before the storm; the second, after:

Fema chief Brock Long says he thinks the authorities are prepared for the recovery efforts that will need to swing into place behind Irma. But, he told CNN, those efforts will need to be on a huge scale:

The forecast models are in great agreement: Florida’s going to get hit.

Particularly what stands out is that the forward speed of this storm is starting to slow down, which indicates it’s about to make its turn to the north.

Any slight fluctuations, 20 or 30 miles, to the east or west of that track, could have big implications for either Miami or the west coast of Florida.

The first impact is obviously going to be storm surges, which is the prime reason why we asked people to evacuate.

Long says there are three days’ worth of commodities – food, water, hygiene kits, for example – in Florida, with further supplies being held outside the state. But he warned:

Citizens of south Florida need to set their expectations that the power could be off for multiple days, if not weeks, in some areas.

Fema (the US Federal Emergency Management Agency) has set up a web page to dispel myths and rumours surrounding Hurricane Irma and the Florida evacuations. You can find it here.

It covers rumours including the high demand for fuel (true) and that hotels must take in pets who arrive with their evacuated owners (false) – although emergency shelters will take pets.

Florida has two nuclear power plants directly in Irma’s projected path.

The St Lucie plant is on the east coast, on a barrier island, while Turkey Point is 25 miles south of Miami.

Florida Power and Light, which operates both plants, says the sites are prepared.

Company president Eric Silagy said St Lucie and Turkey Point will be shut down 24 hours before the arrival of hurricane-force winds, adding that officials “will not take any chances, and those plants will be secure”.

Silagy says the two plants are among the strongest structures in the world, Associated Press reports, encased in a 6-foot-thick (1.8m) cement structure reinforced by steel.

The plants also have multiple safety systems and are elevated about 20ft (6.1m) above sea level to protect against flooding and storm surges.

Turkey Point took a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

UK relief efforts are underway on the British Virgin Islands, Press Association reports:

Off the coast of the British Virgin Islands, the captain of the naval vessel spearheading Britain’s efforts described scenes of destruction.

Stephen Norris, commanding officer of Royal Fleet Auxiliary Mounts Bay, told the Press Association:

I haven’t seen anything on the scale of what we have seen here. It is one of those storms which I think defies all expectations.”

Engineers, marines and medics are on board the ship, which delivered six tonnes of supplies to Anguilla and carried out repair work before moving to the British Virgin Islands.

Norris said:

We will be here as long as it takes. I will stay here as long as I possibly can to support the islands.”

The UK Department for International Development said a further 20 tonnes of aide was en route to the disaster zone.

The British Virgin Islands is also on tropical storm watch as Hurricane Jose approaches, while the Commonwealth islands of Barbuda and Antigua and British territory of Anguilla are on hurricane watch.

Updated

This image shows Hurricane Irma (on the left, over Cuba) and Hurricane Jose (on the right, heading towards the Leeward Islands) – both category four storms:

Bahamas 'spared the worst'

CNN’s Cyril Vanier, speaking from the Bahamas capital of Nassau, said the island group should be spared the worst of Irma – although the hurricane has yet to pass this part of the archipelago:

We are waiting for the worst of it.

The forecasts here have been proved slightly wrong - but in a good way … We’re talking tropical storm-force winds …

We’re not expecting here in the capital Nassau anything that would really threaten the structure of buildings.

There’s still a possibility of floods, there’s still a possibility of rainfall … it’s going to happen throughout the night.

Vanier says people in Nassau are either heading for “whoever has the safest home” or to shelters, 24 of which are dotted across the capital.

Updated

The White House says US president Donald Trump has spoken to his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to offer US support for relief efforts in the French overseas collectivities of St Martin and St Barthélemy.

The two islands suffered massive damage from Irma, with the French part of St Martin (the southern side, St Maarten, is administered by the Netherlands) said to be 95% destroyed.

A man walks on a street covered in debris after hurricane Irma hurricane passed on the French island of Saint-Martin, near Marigot on September 8, 2017. Officials on the island of Guadeloupe, where French aid efforts are being coordinated, suspended boat crossings to the hardest-hit territories of St Martin and St Barts where 11 people have died. Two days after Hurricane Irma swept over the eastern Caribbean, killing at least 17 people and devastating thousands of homes, some islands braced for a second battering from Hurricane Jose this weekend. / AFP PHOTO / Martin BUREAUMARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images
What Irma left behind in St Martin. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Latest hurricane warnings

The US National Hurricane Center says hurricane warnings are in effect in the following places:

  • Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, and Villa Clara
  • Central Bahamas and Ragged Island
  • North-western Bahamas
  • Sebastian Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Anna Maria Island
  • Florida Keys
  • Lake Okeechobee
  • Florida Bay

A hurricane warning means “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion” in those areas as hurricane conditions are expected.

Apart from Ragged Island, the hurricane warning for the south-eastern Bahamas has now been discontinued, as Irma has passed.

There are also storm surge warnings in place for

  • Sebastian Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Venice
  • Florida Keys

According to the NHC:

A storm surge warning means there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, during the next 36 hours.

CBS in Miami reports that even emergency responders in the Florida Keys are expected to evacuate ahead of Irma’s arrival:

Updated

Irma is currently closing in on Caibarién, a city on Cuba’s north coast, with wind speeds of 155mph (250kph).

Hurricane warnings are in place for the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, and Villa Clara.

Moving west, Irma is forecast to continue raking the north coast of Cuba, before an expected turn north-west towards Florida late on Saturday.

Irma hits Cuba

An update from the US National Hurricane Center on Irma confirms the south-western eyewall is currently moving over the north coast of Cuba.

The latest advisory from the US National Hurricane Center confirms that Irma’s successor, Hurricane Jose, remains at category four and is forecast to reach the northern Leeward Islands on Saturday.

Hurricane warnings are in place for several islands already smashed by Irma:

  • Barbuda
  • Anguilla
  • St Martin and St Barthélemy
  • St Maarten

Antigua is on hurricane watch.

A hurricane warning means “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion” in those areas as hurricane conditions are expected.

Jose has wind speeds of up to 150mph (240kph).

British response criticised

The chairs of the UK’s foreign affairs and development select committees have asked the government to explain its response to Hurricane Irma, which has been widely deemed as inadequate.

Tom Tugendhat and Stephen Twigg wrote:

Experts and many in the area have been critical of the overall level of relief currently on offer as well as the apparent lack of forward thinking once the storm’s route to Florida became more than just a possibility.

We are concerned that many in the UK’s overseas territories in the Caribbean are still in grave need.

In Anguilla, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos, our response still requires improvement and the arrival of HMS Ocean in two weeks’ time will be later than any of us would wish.

Prime minister Theresa May took personal charge of the UK government’s much-criticised response to the devastation wrought by Irma in the British Caribbean on Friday when she chaired an emergency meeting and declared British troops were working round the clock to help victims and restore basic services.

But the UK response, given the scale of the devastation, looks flat-footed compared with that mounted by the French and Dutch governments.

Currently in Irma’s sights, after it barrelled over the Turks and Caicos Islands, are the Bahamas and Cuba.

Through Friday night and into Saturday, the hurricane is forecast to move over Cuba’s north coast and the central Bahamas, with wind speeds of up to 155mph (250kph).

Irma is currently a category 4 hurricane, a dip on its peak intensity, but still with potential for widespread devastation.

Some 5.6 million people have been ordered to evacuate Florida – reportedly the largest evacuation in US history.

Governor Rick Scott told people who had not already left to get out now:

If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk.

Scott said his biggest concern, as Irma threatens lashing winds and rains, is the predicted storm surge.

This animation demonstrates how swiftly such a surge can engulf homes:

Barbuda victim named as Carl Junior Francis

The first victim of Irma was two-year-old Carl Junior Francis, Associated Press reports:

On Barbuda, a coral island rising a mere 125ft (38m) above sea level, authorities ordered an evacuation of all 1,400 people to neighbouring Antigua, where Stevet Jeremiah was reunited with one son and made plans to bury another.

Jeremiah, who sells lobster and crab to tourists, was huddled in her wooden home on Barbuda early Wednesday with her partner and their two- and four-year-old boys as Irma ripped open their metal roof and sent the ocean surging into the house.

Her younger son, Carl Junior Francis, was swept away. Neighbours found his body after sunrise.

“Two years old. He just turned two, the 17th, last month. Just turned two,” she repeated.

Her first task, she said, would be to organise his funeral. “That’s all I can do. There is nothing else I can do.”

Virgin businessman Richard Branson – who saw out the storm in a concrete bunker on his private island, Necker – has posted from Virgin Gorda, also in the British Virgin Islands, about recovery efforts.

Branson writes:

Communications in and out of the BVI are still mostly down, but we have a satellite phone working to share updates … There is a huge amount of damage to buildings, but fortunately everyone we have seen so far has been OK.

The boats are piled up like matchsticks in the harbour. Huge cargo ships were thrown out of the water and into rocks. Resorts have been decimated.

The houses have their roofs blown off; even some churches where people sheltered have lost roofs. But the whole British Virgin Islands community is rallying round.

The National Hurricane Center is warning people in Florida not to hope for a last-minute swerve from the approaching Irma.

Dennis Feltgen, an NHC meteorologist and spokesman, said:

This is a storm that will kill you if you don’t get out of the way.

Irma’s winds will rake the whole Florida peninsula, Feltgen cautioned:

Everybody’s going to feel this one.

Hurricane Jose due to hit Caribbean overnight

This is Claire Phipps picking up our live coverage.

The Antigua and Barbuda Met Office has warned that Jose – now a category four hurricane, with wind speeds of 150mph (240kph) – could make its presence felt in the northern Leeward Islands as early as midnight.

It’s currently approaching 7pm local time.

Residents of Barbuda – the tiny island left desolate by Irma just days ago – are being evacuated to the larger sister island of Antigua, which suffered less damage.

By 8am Saturday, Antigua News Room reports, “we could be looking at Irma-type winds”. Flooding is also expected.

Shelters have opened in Antigua for those seeking refuge – again.

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma is barrelling toward the southern Bahamas on a course toward south Florida, with extremely dangerous winds of 150mph (250kph). The hurricane’s width is larger than the state of Florida, and governors as far north as Virginia have declared emergencies.
  • At least 23 people were confirmed killed around the Caribbean so far. The dead include 11 on French St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, two on Dutch St Maarten, one in Barbuda, and one in Anguilla. A teenage surfer died off Barbados in waves churned up by Irma, and four deaths were reported on the British Virgin Islands that have yet to be corroborated.
  • In Florida, a 57-year-old man died from a fall while affixing storm shutters to a house.
  • Florida braced for what may be its worst storm in living memory, with a state-wide hurricane warning and evacuations that left Miami and its environs eerily desolate. “This is a catastrophic storm our state has never seen,” said governor Rick Scott. “We can rebuild your home, we cannot rebuild your life.”
  • Officials feared storm surges of three to 10ft (0.9-3 metres) and ordered more than a million people to evacuate from coastal areas of Florida and Georgia. Travellers clogged highways northward and the governor suspended tolls and struggled to get fuel to gas stations running out of supplies. The mayor of Miami-Dade, Carlos Gimenez, said the mandatory evacuation of some 650,000 people is the largest in the county’s history.
  • Shelters opened all around Florida, and officials pleaded that residents in inland areas should plan to have food and water for three days minimum. The governor closed schools and universities around the state to allow for more room. “After the storm passes, we’ll be here to lift everyone up,” Scott said. “We will get through this together.”
  • The storm is expected to land somewhere on the peninsula late Saturday or on Sunday. Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that Irma could be the most severe hurricane to ever hit the US. “It’s not a question of if Florida’s going to be impacted. It’s a question of how bad Florida’s going to be impacted.”
  • Cuba evacuated people from coastal resorts and warned residents to move inland. The British territories of Turks and Caicos emerged from the storm’s winds battered and after massive storm surges.
  • Hurricane Jose grew to a category four storm east of the Caribbean, with a path toward some of the same islands that have just emerged from Irma’s winds. On the tiny island of Barbuda, where an estimated 90% of buildings were destroyed, authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation to the larger island of Antigua.
  • American, British, French and Dutch relief forces and military personnel moved to Caribbean islands hit by the storm. The US is deploying an aircraft carrier for Irma relief, and federal officials anticipate a recovery costing tens of billions.

As state and federal agencies make their final pleas to Floridians, the National Hurricane Center scientist Taylor Trogdon stresses the sheer scale of hurricane Irma.

The storm, currently cast its eye across the waters north of Cuba, will make landfall on the peninsula sometime late Saturday or early Sunday.

Updated

Miami has become eerily desolate in anticipation of hurricane Irma, with boarded up buildings, empty streets, and plastic wrap and police cordons around gas stations.

Empty gas pumps are wrapped and surrounded by tape at a Mobil Gas Station in the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami.
Empty gas pumps are wrapped and surrounded by tape at a Mobil Gas Station in the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
A boarded up building in Little Havana.
A boarded up building in Little Havana. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The 5pm forecast from the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service show hurricane Irma on the verge of returning to a category five storm, energized by the warm waters off Cuba and Florida.

The projection looks especially dire for the Florida Keys and south-west Florida.

President Donald Trump has signed a $15.3bn aid package for areas affected by hurricane Harvey, hours after Congress overcame dissent by Republicans on a spending package.

The deal does not yet account for the expected high costs from hurricane Irma. In 1992, hurricane Andrew struck west of Miami, destroyed more than 60,000 homes, and killed 65 people. The recovery cost an estimated $26.5bn. Andrew struck as a category five storm, but was in some ways pales in comparison to Irma.

Irma is expected to make landfall as a category four storm, but its width is far larger than Andrew’s, and it held sustained winds of 185mph for 24 hours – longer than any recorded storm. Its winds are expected to devastate south Florida, and an analysis by the reinsurance company Swiss Re estimated that its damages could cost the US more than $100bn.

French authorities in St Martin and St Barts have reported two more deaths, according to the AP, and police in Broward County, Florida, have said a 57-year-old man died while preparing for the storm.

The Davie Police Department said on Friday that the man, who was affixing storm shutters to the second story of a home, fell from a two-story ladder and struck his head on a patio below.

The AP has also spoken with the surf instructor and family friend of a teenager who died off Barbados, in waves made dangerous by Irma. There are now 11 confirmed deaths on St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, two on Dutch St Maarten, and one person killed on Barbuda and Anguilla respectively. There were also four reported deaths on the British Virgin Islands, though local authorities have not yet confirmed the report.

Hurricane Katia is approaching the coast of Mexico, the National Weather Service has said in its latest update, warning that the storm will make landfall on Friday night or early Saturday.

The storm will have maximum winds around 105mph (165kph), and that “a dangerous storm surge will raise water levels by as much as five to eight feet above normal tide levels” in the area of landfall, the agency said. “Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.”

The storm is expected to bring 10-15in of rain over Veracruz, eastern Hidalgo and Puebla, and two to five inches over Tamaulipas, east San Luis Potosi, western Hidalgo, eastern Queretaro and southern Veracruz. “This rainfall will likely cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, especialy in areas of mountainous terrain.”

Mexico is already reeling from the strongest earthquake in 85 years, which struck on Thursday night and caused the deaths of at least 58 people. The epicenter of the quake was just off Mexico’s Pacific coast.

*Update: Climate Central has retracted a simulation of Irma’s potential effect on Miami and other south Florida cities, saying in a statement that it had used “an incorrect tidal point reference” in calculating the severity of floods.

Updated

Mayor Sharief echoes her peers around the state, warning residents that once the storm strikes, much of the state will be paralyzed for its duration.

“Our law enforcement personnel and fire department personnel will not be able to reach you,” Sharief warns. “When wind speedsreach 45mph our vehicles will no longer be able to respond to 911 calls.”

Meanwhile, Miami has emptied out of nearly everyone save the journalists there to cover Irma.

Broward county mayor Barbara Sharief is giving a briefing in south Florida, with a message for nearly the entire state to get garbage bins and other objects out of the streets.

“Bulk pickup has stopped and they will become projectiles in the storm,” she warns. “Power outages from high wind and flooding are anticipated.”

There are nearly 9,000 people in Broward County’s shelters alone, she says, and the county is opening more shelters this evening. Fort Lauderdale airport ceases service on Friday night, and will stay closed through the weekend. People who live in mobile homes have been urged to head to shelters, given that their homes are particularly vulnerable to winds and floods. In other parts of the state, mandatory evacuations have spread.

Rupert Jones, the former attorney general of the British territory of Anguila, has criticzed the British government’s response to hurricane Irma, saying it is not nearly enough and lacks perspective for the enormity of the disaster.

“It is a ridiculous idea that the £32 million pledged by the Uk Govt to its three overseas territories (Anguilla, BVI and Turks & Caicos) for which it is responsible is fair or just,” Jones told the Guardian. “It is a PR drop in the Caribbean ocean for islands subject to devastation and inhabited by its own citizens. To put it in perspective it wasted £285 million on an unusable airport for St Helena, one of its territories in the Atlantic.”

Jones’ criticisms echo those of others in the Caribbean and in Britain. The UK has sent a naval vessel, personnel, supplies and helicopters to its territories in the region, and French, American, and Dutch military and relief crews are coordinating with the recovery.

Orlando’s sprawling theme parks are closing ahead of hurricane Irma, their parent corporations announced on Friday.

Officials at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando said their parks would close on Saturday and remain quiet through Monday at least, though they hope to reopen on Tuesday. SeaWorld and Tampa’s Busch Gardens announced similar plans to close Saturday afternoon or evening and reopen on Tuesday.

Disney World has only closed a handful of times in its existence, including last year, when hurricane Matthew raked past the south-east coast of the peninsula.

Vanessa Thompson, a teacher on the British territory of Anguilla, has recorded video of the island’s only secondary school. The buildings are in partial ruins, with roofs lifted onto the streets, walls shorn from classrooms, and debris scattered everywhere.

Donald Trump’s parting remarks on hurricane Irma, which is approximately 380 miles south south-west of the US mainland.

The National Hurricane Center has updated its forecast to take into account the latest from the NWS, predicting 10-15in of rain in south-east Florida through Tuesday night.

Eastern Florida and coastal Georgia should expect anywhere from eight to 16in, the agency said, with flash floods and mudslides possible. Like state authorities, the agency warned that storm surges should not be underestimated. In south-west Florida, waves could move six to 12ft above ground at high tide.

Reuters meanwhile has reported updates on fatalities and injuries from the Caribbean islands that have already suffered the hurricane. The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency reported four deaths on the British Virgin Islands, but local authorities have not corroborated that figure.

There were 21 deaths confirmed by various government officials around the region. French interior minister Gerard Collomb has said nine people were killed in St Barthelemey and French St Martin, and that seven people remain missing and 112 injured.

Dutch authorities on neighboring St Maarten have reported two dead and 43 wounded.

Four people were killed on the US Virgin Islands, according to a government spokesperson; three died on Puerto Rico; one person was killed on the tiny island of Barbuda; one in the British territory of Anguilla; and one person in Barbados.

On Barbuda, tragedy has colored the hurried, now mandatory evacuation from the tiny island, where category four hurricane Jose is approaching. The AP reports:

Stevet Jeremiah lost her 2-year-old son, her house and all her belongings when Hurricane Irma slammed into the tiny island of Barbuda. Now she is leaving the island for good.

Jeremiah said her mother and other son had been sent to Antigua and she and her husband were going to follow. She said she has “nothing, not even an ID to say my name.”

When it was still a category five storm, the hurricane ripped the roof off her house and filled it with water. Jeremiah said there was “so much water beating past us, we had to crawl to get to safety.” Her son was swept away in floodwaters.

In Antigua, she planned to look for her surviving son and her mother, and start making arrangements for the two-year-old’s funeral.

She said she has experienced hurricanes before, but “never anything like this in my life ... and I don’t ever, ever, ever want to see something like this again.”

Officials in Antigua have launched a national campaign to open their homes to hurricane victims from Barbuda.

“Gouging will not be tolerated, period,” Bossert says, again echoing Florida governor Rick Scott in response to a question about predatory business practices.

He also says that he’s concerned about potential overflow from Lake Okeechobee, the large inland lake in south Florida. Scott said that engineers are regularly inspecting the lake’s dike and they believe that it is not at risk for breaking.

Nevertheless, Scott has ordered mandatory evacuations for cities around the lake.

Bossert says he’s worried about the financial resources for disaster relief.

Fema is already coping with recovery from devastating floods in Houston, after hurricane Harvey, and agencies around the country are strained, especially with western wildfires. Bossert says the president, Donald Trump, will sign approval for relief funds as soon as Congress brings such a measure to his desk.

White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert is speaking to reporters about the US preparation for hurricane Irma.

Fuel is particularly important, he says, echoing Florida governor Rick Scott. Foreign ships have been allowed to bring fuel to Florida, he says, to provide residents with the fuel to evacuate before the storm, for power during and after the storm, and for vehicles during the recovery.

“At some point people are going to be on their own, so to speak, for a period of time when the flooding, the wind and the rain bear down on them,” he says. They should have enough supplies for at least a 72 hour period.

Bossert warns against “hurricane amnesia”: forgetting how people lose power, communications, and mobility during and after a storm.

Federal agencies are preparing for last minute variables of the storm. Bossert notes that the north-east section of the storm is the most dangerous, meaning a turn west and then north could be especially destructive to the state, with that quadrant of winds crossing across the state. On the other hand, should the eyewall cross onto land the storm will lose speed, Bossert notes.

The storm, he says, “has taken lives already. It’s going to take more, unfortunately, if we’re not prepared.”

Updated

Nearing the warmer waters of the Bahamas and Cuba, hurricane Irma’s winds have increased to 155mph, according to a 2pm advisory by the National Weather Service.

On Cuba, Reuters reports that life has come to a near total stop.

Schools and most businesses were closed, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated, and train, bus and domestic air services around the island were canceled. Airports were closing to international flights as conditions warranted. Tourists, and even the dolphins that entertain them, were evacuated. The storm was then predicted to veer north, sparing western Cuba and Havana.

In the Cuban fishing town of Caibarien, residents secured their roofs and moved belongings from low-lying coastal areas to houses higher up inland as the skies clouded over. Most said they were worried but well prepared.

Esteban Reyes, 65, was pushing his bicycle taxi laden with a mattress, iron and DVD player. “We are used to storms but I’m still a bit scared. But the government has taught us to be prepared and help one another,” he said.

In the Bahamas, the government evacuated most people from the southern islands before the storm hit, with some 1,200 people airlifted to the capital, Nassau.

The UN’s special representative for disaster risk reduction, Robert Glasser, has joined the chorus of voices linking the extraordinary frequency and force of weather events – huge hurricanes, wildfires across the American west, flooding in Nigeria and India – to the exacerbating effect of climate change.

“There can be little doubt that 2017 is turning into a year of historic significance,” Glasser said, “in the struggle against climate change and all the other risks that put human life in danger and threaten the peace and security of exposed and vulnerable communities around the world who find themselves in harm’s way from hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.”

We must realise that these disaster events are not natural phenomena but are a result of a built environment which is not fit for purpose and a failure to understand how we are intensifying the cocktail of disaster risk by not adequately addressing poverty, land use, building codes, environmental degradation, population growth in exposed in vulnerable settings and, most fundamentally, greenhouse gas emissions.

The floods and monsoon rains across South Asia, deadly landslides and drought in Africa, the impact of four major Atlantic hurricanes, a major earthquake in Mexico with a tsunami threat to central America vividly demonstrate that we need to redouble our efforts to reduce the impact of such events in the future. They are a reminder to us all that the worst disasters which could happen have not happened yet.

“If we do not succeed in understanding what it takes to make our societies more resilient to disasters then we will pay an increasingly high price in terms of lost lives and livelihoods.”

Residents of Barbuda, where the prime minister estimated 90% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed, recall surviving hurricane Irma’s 170mph winds and huge storm surges.

Florida governor Rick Scott is holding another briefing for the public, exhorting people to move now if they haven’t already.

“If you’re in an evacuation zone, leave. it’s as simple as that,” he says. He suggests people to county shelters or friends’ homes away from the coasts, rather than join the mass exodus on northbound. “Don’t wait. If you’re going to leave, leave. If you’ know what’s going to happen, do it now. The mistake is when people wait.”

Scott also condemns price gouging by airliners and other services, saying that the practice will not be forgotten in the aftermath of the storm.

“It’s disgusting if anybody price gouges,” he says. “We have an attorney general that will prosecute people for price gouging. This is the time to help our neighbors, this is not the time to take advantage of our neighbors.”

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma is barrelling toward the southern Bahamas on a course toward southern Florida, with extremely dangerous winds of 150mph (250kph). The storm’s eye doubled in size overnight, and the hurricane’s width is larger than the state of Florida.
  • More than 20 people were confirmed killed around the Caribbean so far. The dead include nine on French St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, two on Dutch St Maarten, one in Barbuda, and one in Anguilla. Four deaths were reported on the British Virgin Islands but they have not been corroborated.
  • Florida braced for what may be its worst storm in living memory, with a state-wide hurricane warning. “This is a catastrophic storm our state has never seen,” said governor Rick Scott. “We can rebuild your home, we cannot rebuild your life.”
  • Officials feared storm surges of three to 10ft and ordered more than a million people to evacuate from coastal areas of south Florida and Georgia. Travellers clogged highways northward and the governor suspended tolls and struggled to get fuel to gas stations running out of supplies. The mayor of Miami-Dade, Carlos Gimenez, said the evacuation is the largest in the county’s history.
  • Shelters opened all around Florida, and officials pleaded that residents in inland areas should plan to have food and water for three days minimum. The governor closed schools and universities around the state to allow for more room. “After the storm passes, we’ll be here to lift everyone up,” Scott said. “We will get through this together.”
  • The storm is expected to land somewhere on the peninsula late Saturday or on Sunday. Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that Irma could be the most severe hurricane to ever hit the US. “It’s not a question of if Florida’s going to be impacted. It’s a question of how bad Florida’s going to be impacted.”
  • Cuba is evacuating tourists from coastal resorts and warning residents to move inland, and the British territories of Turks and Caicos suffered nearly directly under the storm’s path.
  • Hurricane Jose grew to a category four storm east of the Caribbean, with a path toward some of the same islands that have just emerged from Irene’s winds. On the tiny island of Barbuda, where an estimated 90% of buildings were destroyed, authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation to the larger island of Antigua.
  • American, British, French and Dutch relief forces and military personnel started to move toward or arrive at Caribbean islands hit by the storm.

Updated

Death toll surpasses 20

Authorities in Barbados and Dutch St Maarten have reported an additional death on each island, and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency has released a statement saying that four people have died on the British Virgin Islands, raising the death toll to more than 20.

Local authorities have yet to corroborate the figure from the CDEMA. On Barbados, a young surfer died earlier this week, a family friend told the AP, in powerful waves churned up by the hurricane.

The storm has killed at least 19 others, including nine on the French territories of St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, one other person on Dutch St Maarten, one in Barbuda, and one in Anguilla. Officials have said they expect the death toll to increase.

The CDEMA gave few details in its statement, but said that the Tortola airport is working but that it’s tower has been “compromised” by the storm. The agency estimated that 90% of Anguilla’s power infrastructure was damaged, 90% of government buildings damaged, and that the island suffered “significant damage to [its] main water supply”.

Updated

Seven cities near Lake Okeechobee, a huge inland lake in southern Florida, have been given a mandatory evacuation notice.

Residents have been ordered to evacuate from South Bay, Lake Harbor, Pahokee, Moore Haven, Clewiston, Belle Glade and Canal Point. Governor Rick Scott said that a critical dike on the lake was inspected on Friday morning, and will receive regular inspections as long as crews are able. He also said the US army corps of engineers assured him that the dike “will not be compromised”, though it may have some spillover, since the storm is far faster-moving than hurricane Harvey, which flooded Houston.

Northern Cuba and the southern Bahamas are now suffering Irma’s 150mph winds, glimpses of which are seeping through on social media. Local Bahamian broadcaster Shenique Miller has posted video of the winds.

And on the British territories of Turks and Caicos, Miami Herald correspondent Jacqueline Charles tweets a photo of a flooded, desolate airport in the aftermath of the storm.

Authorities warn again that everyone should leave the Florida Keys immediately. Governor Rick Scott said on Thursday that the archipelago will be entirely without support for the duration of the storm, cut off by winds and storm surges, with its hospital closed.

And Irma is finding new strength in the warm waters closer to the mainland, notes meteorologist John Morales, a south Florida stalwart who saw hurricane Andrew firsthand in 1992.

Hurricane Jose grows to category four

Hurricane Jose, east of the Caribbean and heading west, has grown to a category four storm, the National Weather Service has announced.

Thousands remain trapped on St Martin, St Barts, and the Virgin Islands in Jose’s path. On the devastated island of Barbuda, officials have ordered people to evacuate to nearby Antigua, which was spared the degree of destruction. Jose is tentatively projected to veer north, into the open ocean, before nearing Cuba or the mainland, but it may yet change direction.

Some forecasters also fear that the warm waters around coastal Florida – in the high 80s off parts of Palm Beach County – may reinvigorate Irma, turning the gigantic category four storm back into a category five.

Footage of waves pouring into a home on Anguilla, filmed by a resident in his kitchen and provided by Rupert Jones, former attorney general of the British territory.

Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s resort in Palm Beach County, has been ordered to evacuate along with other coastal stretches and barrier islands of south Florida.

More than 100,000 Palm Beach County residents were given mandatory evacuation alerts on Thursday night and Friday morning, and more than a million people ordered to leave their homes along coastal areas, mostly from the densely populated Miami-Dade County.

Governor Rick Scott warned that all Floridians should be ready to evacuate, if necessary: a total of 20 million people.

The Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, from the view of Air Force One.
The Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, from the view of Air Force One. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

With only about a day before hurricane Irma reaches south Florida, FlightRadar24, a site that tracks aircraft in real-time, shows the state is swarming with flights. Dozens of flights were cancelled or delayed from the region’s major airports over the last 24 hours, as people tried to leave the state.

Fort Lauderdale’s international airport will close Friday night, and Miami International has warned that people should not attempt to use it as a shelter from the storm.

Irma is tracking steadily toward the mainland, currently moving above Cuba’s northern coast. (Google has not yet updated its graphics to show the storm as category four.)

Screen Shot 2017-09-08 at 10.27.03 AM
Screen Shot 2017-09-08 at 10.27.03 AM Photograph: FlightRadar24
Screen Shot 2017-09-08 at 10.29.36 AM
Screen Shot 2017-09-08 at 10.29.36 AM Photograph: Google

With time running out before Irma makes land, much of south Florida has emptied out, leaving behind boarded up homes, vulnerable marinas, and scattered families and reporters bracing for the storm.

Various Florida authorities are offering last minute advice for people who are barricading into their own homes before the storm. Residents can also call an emergency information hotline: 1.800.342.3557.

*Update: BuzzFeed’s Jane Lytvynenko, doing yeoman’s work of countering misinformation about hurricane Irma and preparation, has received counter-counsel on the advice given by Miami Beach.

Updated

A reporter asks the governor about Lake Okeechobee, where there’s concern about whether a dike will withstand the hurricane.

Scott says that the dike was inspected this morning and “they don’t believe that the dike is at risk.” Expecting 10-12in of rain, “they don’t believe we’re expecting anything other than water spilling over the top.”

He promises another briefing later Friday, and leaves with another appeal: “evacuate. Keep everybody safe.”

“Please be compassionate with your employees,” the governor urges employers. “If you’re told to evacuate, leave. Get out quickly. Do not put yourself or your family’s life at risk.”

“If you are in an evacuation zone in south Florida, you need to leave.”

He stresses at length that the state is doing everything it can to get fuel around the state, and that the GasBuddy app can help guide people to where it’s available. Residents who cannot evacuate zones on their own should call 1.800.342.3557, he says.

“We will do everything we can to get you out, but you have to call now if you’re in an evacuation zone. We cannot save you in the storm.”

Scott adds that he’s ordered the closure of all local schools and universities to ensure that there’s as much available safe spaces. Residents still have time to reach shelters, he adds.

“We are running out of time. the storm is almost here,” he says. “This is a catastrophicc storm our state has never seen. We can rebuild your home, we cannot rebuild your life. Protecting everyone’s life is our number one priority.”

“Floridians are strong, we’re resilient. After the storm passes, we’ll be here to lift everyone up. We will get through this together.”

Florida governor: all should be ready to evacuate

Governor Rick Scott is providing an update on the monstrous storm bearing down on Florida, and warned residents that there may be storm surges from three to 10ft in parts of the state.

“This storm is wider than our entire state. All Floridians should be prepared to evacuate soon,” Scott says. He thanks people who are on their way inland and to the north, and asks them for their patience.

“I know many of you are stuck in traffic, I’m sure it’s very frustrating. Evacuations are not convenient but they are absolutely meant to keep you safe.”

Trust your local officials, Scott urges residents, saying that national guard troops and police are mobilized to help people, and that in certain parts of highways drivers can use improvised shoulder lanes. “You do not need to evacuate out of state or hundreds of miles away to stay safe,” he says, telling people to look up local shelters.

Google is coordinating with state officials, Scott says, to show road closures and detours in real time. Tolls have been waived on all Florida highways.

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma remains an “extremely dangerous” hurricane, but it has been downgraded from category 5 to 4 with slightly decreased wind speeds of 150mph (250kph), as it ploughs over the Bahamas, 400 miles south-east of Florida.
  • Captain Stephen Russell, of the Bahamas national emergency management agency, said he fears for hundreds of islanders who ignored evacuation orders. “The destructive force of a 25ft surge: that is our greatest concern. It can really cause catastrophic results,” he said.
  • Two other hurricanes in the region, Jose and Katia, have gained strength. Jose, now has sustained wind speeds of 125mp. In the coming days it is forecast to pass near the same Leeward Islands that were battered by Irma.
  • A full-scale hurricane warning is in place for south Florida and mass evacuations have been ordered before Irma is expected to make landfall on Saturday.
  • Donald Trump has warned that the impact of Irma could be “tougher” than Hurricane Harvey. Among the properties forced to evacuate in Florida is Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Brock Long, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, warned that no one inFlorida has experienced a storm with the intensity of Irma.
  • Cuba is evacuating tourists from coastal resorts and warning residents to move inland.
  • The hurricane also pummelled the Turks and Caicos Islands, where power failed and the governor, John Freeman, warned residents: “Hunker down, stay where you are … Nobody can get to you – people are, for a little while, on their own.”
  • Across the Caribbean, at least 18 people are confirmed to have died in the storm: an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, four in the US Virgin Islands, and nine in the French territory of St Martin. Lonnie Soury, a spokesman for the US Virgin Islands, said the toll was expected to rise.
  • A state of emergency has declared on the British Virgin Islands amid unconfirmed reports of casualties. Roads are closes and communication is patchy.
  • The first aid flight has reached the Franco-Dutch island of St Martin/St Maarten, after Dutch troops cleared the runway in St Maarten. Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte said there had been enormous destruction and upheaval including serious looting.
  • The UK and France have also mobilised personnel and aid for their overseas territories that were caught in the onslaught. UK aid has delivered to Anguilla, and ship carrying supplies has reached the British Virgin Islands.
  • Theresa May is chairing a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, Corbra. After complaints that the British government’s response has been slow, ministers authorised £32m in emergency aid and dispatched a military task group. HMS Ocean – currently in the Mediterranean – will be deployed but will take 10-14 days to reach the Caribbean.
  • A voluntary evacuation began from the tiny island of Barbuda – where upwards of 90% of homes were destroyed – to its larger sister island of Antigua, with the prospect of Hurricane Jose, a category 3 storm, striking this weekend.

Updated

Irma has left the Franco-Dutch island of St Martin/St Maarten like “war zone,” Belgium tourist Flaming Maarten told the Dutch Red Cross.

It quotes him saying: “Everyone was prepared for the hurricane’s arrival, but no one had expected such an impact.”

He said he had to flee to a friend’s house after the home he was staying in was completely destroyed “We are terrified, but we are unharmed,” Maarten said.

There is no power, no water and supplies are running low, he said. All the luggage that he and is girlfriend had has been lost.

“The streets are full of debris and trees,” he said.

An aerial photograph provided by the Dutch Ministry of Defence shows the damage of Hurricane Irma on the Caribbean island of St Maarten.
An aerial photograph provided by the Dutch Ministry of Defence shows the damage of Hurricane Irma on the Caribbean island of St Maarten. Photograph: via ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Trump: 'Irma is of epic proportion'

In his latest tweets Donald Trump has warned that the impact of Irma could be “tougher” than Hurricane Harvey.

The death toll from Harvey which was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit Texas, was 70 according to officials cited by Fox News.

Among the properties forced to evacuate in Florida is Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the Miami Herald reports:

President Donald Trump’s seaside Mar-a-Lago resort has been ordered to evacuate because of Hurricane Irma, along with the barrier islands and low-lying areas of Palm Beach County.

Trump has returned repeatedly to the private club – which he bought in 1985 – to relax and conduct state business since becoming president.

Updated

The estimated death toll from the storm varies. Reuters reckons that at least 19 people have been killed.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said that nine people were killed and at least seven were missing after the hurricane crashed into France’s Caribbean islands of St. Martin and St Barts.

“One hundred and twelve people were injured,” Collomb said, adding there could be more victims.

Four people died in the US Virgin islands, a government spokesman said, and a major hospital was badly damaged by the wind. A US amphibious assault ship arrived in the US Virgin Islands on Thursday and sent helicopters for medical evacuations from the destroyed hospital.

A man was reported missing after trying to cross a river in Cerca La Source in Haiti’s Central Plateau region.

On Barbuda one person died and the eastern Caribbean island was reduced “to rubble,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.

In the British overseas territory of Anguilla, another person was killed and the hospital and airport were damaged, emergency service officials said.

Three people were killed in Puerto Rico and around two-thirds of the population had lost electricity, Governor Ricardo Rossello said after the storm rolled by the U.S. territory’s northern coast. A surfer was also reported killed in Barbados.

Theresa May has spoken of the devastation in the Caribbean ahead of chairing a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergencies committee, PA reports.

She went to the meeting after cutting short a visit to Lord’s cricket ground, where the Test match between England and the West Indies was suspended because of rain.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live sports extra’s Test Match Special at Lord’s, May said:

“We are sitting here looking at this rain, but at least we are not in the Caribbean at the moment, when we see the terrible devastation of that hurricane that’s gone through and another one coming through as well.

“I’ve just been able to talk to somebody whose family is out in Antigua, and hearing first-hand what it’s like and the steps they’ve had to take. It is devastating, absolutely devastating.”

“There will be people here supporting the West Indies, people supporting England. I’m sure everybody here has at the back of their mind the terrible devastation and the impact that the hurricane has had.

“We want to do everything we can and will do everything we can to support people, but also to help them rebuild.”

Prime Minister Theresa May during day two of the thrid test at Lords.
Prime Minister Theresa May during day two of the thrid test at Lords.
 Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

The Met Office reckons Irma is passing over Acklins island in the Bahamas. The island is home to more than 400 people. It is feared that more than 100 ignored evacuation orders.

Fema director: Irma will be 'devastating'

Brock Long, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, warned that no one in Florida has experienced a storm with the intensity of Irma.

“It’s not a question of if Florida is going to be impacted, it’s a question of how bad,” he tells reporters.

Brock Long
Brock Long
 Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Speaking at Fema headquarters in Washington on Friday, Long said those in low-lying areas who’ve been told to evacuate “need to get out and heed the warning.”

More than 8,000 Fema staff have been deployed to prepare for Irma and help with the continuing recovery effort from Hurricane Harvey, which caused massive flooding in southeastern Texas last week.

Updated

The navy ship Mounts Bay has arrived in the British Virgin Islands, after delivering aid to Anguilla, according to the former governor John Duncan.

Irma remains an extremely dangerous category four hurricane, but it has slightly weakened again, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

Here are key points from the latest bulletin:

  • Irma now has sustained windspeeds of 150mph (down from 155mph earlier today and 185mph on Thursday) as it heads across the Bahamas, 450 miles south-east of Florida.
  • Hurricane and storm warnings for Haiti have been lifted.
  • Storm surge warnings and watches are in place for large parts of southern Florida, and the Florida Keys, the southeastern, central and northeastern Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and four Cuban provinces
  • A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the Florida coast north of Jupiter Inlet to Sebastian Inlet and north of Bonita Beach to Anna Maria Island; and the Cuban provinces of Guantanamo, Holguin, Las Tunas and Matanzas. “Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions,” it says.
  • On the forecast track, the eye of Irma should move near the north coast of Cuba and the central Bahamas today and Saturday, and be near the Florida Keys and the southern Florida Peninsula on Sunday morning.
  • The US states of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have been warned of “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” from next Tuesday.

Theresa May is to chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee this afternoon, Downing Street has said, and will then decide what more action the government should take over relief efforts.

There was also a Cobra meeting about Irma on Thursday, though that was chaired by the defence secretary, Michael Fallon.

May’s spokeswoman said: “She’s being kept up to date constantly by officials at Downing Street, and will chair the Cobra meeting later.”

The international development secretary, Priti Patel, is visiting an aid centre in Gloucestershire where supplies are being prepared to be sent to HMS Ocean, which has been diverted from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean to help aid efforts.

Death toll increases to 18

Nine people have been killed and at least seven are missing after Irma hit France’s Caribbean islands of Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy, the French interior minister has said. A further 112 people are confirmed to have been injured, and all those tolls could rise, Gérard Collomb added.

Collomb’s statement raises the overall confirmed death toll to 18.

Updated

The Department for International Development has sent through a breakdown of the help arriving and on it way to the Caribbean after the UK was criticised for its slow response. It said:

  • UK aid is on the ground from Mounts Bay. Shelter kits, tin sheets and plywood to help with response and reconstruction in Anguilla.
  • More going to British Virgin Islands from Mounts Bay
  • DFID are sending shelter kits providing immediate relief to people who have seen their homes destroyed and we arranging flights carrying further urgently needed relief supplies.
  • A team of British humanitarian experts were on the ground in advance of the hurricane and they are working with the authorities to direct the humanitarian response.
  • The UK was the first to arrive at Anguilla and DFID is doubling its field presence to get even more help to the people most in need.
  • C17 flight to Barbados – has left Brize Norton. As well as 50 troops there is humanitarian aid (such as shelters,). More aid planned to go on later flights.
  • Today three trucks will be at the DFID Disaster Response Centre at Kemble Airfield, Gloucestershire to take humanitarian aid to meet HMS Ocean.
  • These trucks will take 10,000 UK aid buckets and 5,000 UK aid solar lanterns.
  • The UK has already sent emergency UK aid relief supplies including 200 shelter kits, each able to support a family of five, providing immediate relief to 1,000 people who have lost their homes.

Former UN humanitarian chief Baroness Amos said it was felt the UK “did not respond” quickly enough.

She told the BBC: “It’s always the people on the ground who respond first. They are looking to their national governments but they are also looking outside for as much help to come as quickly as possible.

“We are now a couple of days in and I think people are feeling Britain did not respond quickly enough given we know that it is hurricane season.”

First UK aid arrives

The first UK aid drops have been made by helicopter to the British island of Anguilla as more aid is on the way to the British Virgin Islands, according to the latest updates from the Department for International Developments.

Meanwhile, Downing Street has told reporters that Theresa May is to chair a meeting of the government’s emergency committee Cobra to discuss the response to Irma. The first Cobra meeting about Irma was held on Thursday, and was chaired by Michael Fallon, the defence secretary.

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma remains an “extremely dangerous” hurricane, but it has been downgraded from category 5 to 4 with slightly decreased wind speeds of 155mph (250kph), as it ploughs over the Bahamas, north-east of Cuba.
  • Captain Stephen Russell, of the Bahamas national emergency management agency, said he fears for hundreds of islanders who ignored evacuation orders. “The destructive force of a 25ft surge: that is our greatest concern. It can really cause catastrophic results,” he said.
  • Two other hurricanes in the region, Jose and Katia, have gained strength. Jose, now has sustained wind speeds of 125mp. In the coming days it is forecast to pass near the same Leeward Islands that were battered by Irma.
  • A full-scale hurricane warning is in place for south Florida and mass evacuations have been ordered before Irma is expected to make landfall on Saturday.
  • Cuba is evacuating tourists from coastal resorts and warning residents to move inland.
  • On Thursday night Irma crossed north of Haiti, causing less damage than had been feared in the beleaguered country. There were reports of some injuries and damage to buildings, but not widespread devastation.
  • The hurricane also pummelled the Turks and Caicos Islands, where power failed and the governor, John Freeman, warned residents: “Hunker down, stay where you are … Nobody can get to you – people are, for a little while, on their own.”
  • Across the Caribbean, at least 13 people are confirmed to have died in the storm: an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, four in the US Virgin Islands, and four in the French territory of St Martin.Lonnie Soury, a spokesman for the US Virgin Islands, said the toll was expected to rise.
  • A state of emergency has declared on the British Virgin Islands amid unconfirmed reports of casualties. Roads are closes and communication is patchy.
  • The first aid flight has reached the Franco-Dutch island of St Martin, after Dutch troops cleared the runway in St Maarten. Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte said there had been enormous destruction and upheaval including serious looting.
  • The UK and France have also mobilised personnel and aid for their overseas territories that were caught in the onslaught.
  • After complaints that the British government’s response has been slow, ministers authorised £32m in emergency aid and dispatched a military task group. HMS Ocean – currently in the Mediterranean – will be deployed but will take 10-14 days to reach the Caribbean.
  • A voluntary evacuation began from the tiny island of Barbuda – where upwards of 90% of homes were destroyed – to its larger sister island of Antigua, with the prospect of Hurricane Jose, a category 3 storm, striking this weekend.

Terrorist suspects being held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay on Cuba will not be evacuated, a Pentagon official has told Newsweek.

“We have no indications that any detainees at Guantanamo Bay will need to be evacuated from the installation due to Hurricane Irma,” Major Ben Sakrisson, a Pentagon spokesman told the magazine.

Officials have also opted not to evacuate the residents of the base, preferring instead to have them stay put and ride out the storm.

BVI Governor 'heartbroken' by reports of fatalities

The Governor of the British Virgin Islands, Gus Jaspert, has delivered an emotional message to islanders saying he is “heartbroken” by reports of casualties as a result of the hurricane.

In an audio message on Facebook he said:

I come to you with a heavy heart after experiencing and observing the extent of devastation caused by Hurricane Irma. After consultation with the Premier I have declared a state of emergency for the territory. Radio and other communication channels are extremely limited ...

All of us have been affected by Irma and some more than others. Apart from the structural damage, there have sadly been reports of casualties and fatalities. I am truly heartbroken by this news. My thoughts and prayers are with each and every one of you.

I know many of you are concerned about what will happen in the short term over the next couple of hours and days. I would like to appeal to you to remain calm and to reassure you that we are doing all that we can to assist you.

Jaspert urged islanders to monitor the course of the next Hurricane, Jose, which could hit the islands in the coming days. He said:

On its current track, Jose is predicted to pass north of the Virgin Islands, possibly as a Category 3 hurricane on Saturday or Sunday. If it stays north of us we will not be significantly affected. But if it comes any closer to us we will be affected and so our preparation and response efforts have to be immediate. We need your cooperation and your support to ensure that we can ramp up our operations in the event that we are impacted again.

Let us all continue to help each other however we can and continue to pray for each other. May God bless and protect the territory and our people.”

Audio message from BVI Governor Gus Jaspert

Updated

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte says the runway on St Maarten has been cleared and first aid flight has arrived.

In a Facebook update he said there has been enormous destruction and upheaval on the Franco-Dutch island.

“Many inhabitants are devoid of basic necessities,” Rutte said.

He added:

“We’ve been able to clear the runway at the airport and a first plane has landed. Our troops have been able to unload supplies at the port. We are now trying to get as much food, water and medicine as possible in the shortest possible time.

We need to hurry because the next hurricane is coming. The latest reports are that hurricane José is less powerful and Sint Maarten and will pass further from the island. That is some good news in all the misery. But we are prepared for everything and will keep an eye on the situation. We won’t abandon St Maarten.”

In a press conference Rutte is reported to have told reporters that there is “serious” problem with looting in the wake of the hurricane.

The Dutch broadcaster RTL Nieuws has published video purporting to show looting in the wake of the storm.

Here’s the slightly adjusted track and timings of impact from the latest update. Miami still lies directly in its path.

Those in central Florida have been warned to expect category tow strength winds of up to 110mph at the weekend.

Irma downgraded to category 4 hurricane

Irma is still “extremely dangerous” but it has been downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 hurricane with sustained windspeeds of 155mph.

Here’s are the main points from the latest National Hurricane Center update:

  • The Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas are warned of life-threatening winds and storm surges until Saturday. Hurricane conditions will also spread to parts of north Cuba.
  • Severe hurricane conditions will hit Florida on Saturday night.
  • A storm surge warning of “life threatening inundation” is place for the next 36 hours in Florida.
  • The US states of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have been warned of “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” from next Tuesday.

Hurricane Jose and Katia gain strength

While Irma has lost a little strength, two other Hurricanes in the region Katia and Jose have gained strength, according to the latest warnings from the National Hurricane Center.

Irma is still packing devastating sustained wind speeds of 155 mph (down from 185mph).

Close behind it is Hurricane Jose which has slightly increased power and now has sustained speeds of 125mph. At the weekend it is forecast to batter the same Leeward Islands that were hit by Hurricane Irma earlier this week.

To the south-west in the Gulf of Mexico is Hurricane Katia which has increase sustained wind speeds to 90mp.

Fears for those who ignored evacuation orders in the Bahamas

Captain Stephen Russell, of the Bahamas national emergency management agency, has expressed fears for hundreds of people who ignored evacuation orders on islands in the archipelago.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he said there were five islands that are likely to be worst hit by Irma: Great Inagua ( population 913); Mayaguana (277) Acklins (population 428); Crooked Islands (population 350); and Ragged Island (population 72).

Irma was recorded barrelling over these islands within the last 90 minutes.

All of the people on those islands were urged to leave as have the 600 people on the islands of Bimini, 50 miles to the east of the coast of Florida.

Up to two-thirds of the people on those islands, have been flown to the capital Nassau, Russell said, including 400 people from the Bimini islands on Thursday.

He said: “I fear for those person who chose not to evacuate from the islands. The government has made a very strong appeal to them. But some are simply stubborn. There is very little we can do to assistant until Monday or Tuesday. That is fear, that when we go into those areas we are going to find persons in serious distress and even fatalities.”

He added: “Those who have stayed include troops, police officers and persons who just made up their mind that they are not going to leave their island. That is their choice. The government of the Bahamas made a strong appeal for all of them to leave the island but they made up their minds that they are going to ride out the storm in the islands.”

Updated

Dutch troops have begun unloading aid on the Franco-Dutch island of St Martin/St Maarten.

The French government has sent two ships to the area.

The UK government has deployed RFA Mounts Bay to the area. HMS Ocean is also on the way, but will not reach the Caribbean for at least 10 days.

Updated

A former official on the British dependency of Anguilla has an update on the carnage on the island left by Irma.

The official, who does not want to be named, said the island high school has been destroyed; the public works building has collapsed and part of the roof of the main hospital is missing.

“It is fair to call the situation devastating,” he said, “most roads remain blocked and power lines are down.”

He added that power lines are down everywhere and that mobile phone connections are patchy at best.

The UK government plans to deploy troops to the island after conceded that the situation there was worse than feared.

Patrick Lynch of Roy’s Bayside Grill forwarded images of some of the damage to Anguilla.

Homes destroyed in Anguilla by Hurricane Irma
Homes destroyed in Anguilla by Hurricane Irma Photograph: Patrick Lynch
Hurricane Irma damage to a main road in Anguilla
Hurricane Irma damage to a main road in Anguilla Photograph: Patrick Lynch
A fuel truck overturned in Anguilla after Hurricane Irma
A fuel truck overturned in Anguilla after Hurricane Irma Photograph: Patrick Lynch

One of the humanitarian experts sent by the British government to the Caribbean has admitted that the UK has not done as much for its territories in the the region as the Dutch and French government have for theirs.

Fergus Thomas is a member of two small humanitarian teams deployed to the Caribbean in the wake of Irma.

He was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about criticism from Anguilla, one of the islands worst hit, that Britain had failed to follow the example of the Netherlands and France in preparing its dependencies for the impact of the hurricane.

Thomas replied: “That’s a very fair comment. There is quite some justification in that, however we have had a navy vessel that has been sheltering just south of Puerto Rico and has now deployed, so within 24 hours we have managed to move some of our military assets to support the survivors and today they were in Anguilla.”

He admitted UK humanitarian teams had yet to reach the worst hit areas. He said: “We haven’t got onto the ground on the islands that have been worst hit. Some of our military colleagues have got out today and started doing the first assistance.”

But he said it was unfair to criticise the UK military for its response.

“They moved us as soon as soon as they could to the islands that have been worst hit. I would question the criticism that they [the British military] haven’t been timely. They are the first responders in Anguilla. They are moving now to the British Virgin Islands, which as far as we now have been majorly catastrophically hit.”

On Thursday foreign office minister Alan Duncan defended the UK government’s response by pointed out that the UK does not directly govern its islands in the Caribbean. He told the Commons: “The relationship between overseas territories and their parent countries differs. Whilst French territories are directly governed, that is not the case with our overseas territories. While this means our responses will, of course, be different, we will seek to achieve the same objectives and are taking immediate steps to do so.”

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma remains a category 5 hurricane, with slightly decreased wind speeds of 160mph (260kph), currently swiping Great Inagua island at the southernmost tip of the Bahamas.
  • Captain Stephen Russell, of the Bahamas national emergency management agency, said rising tide levels could be life-threatening:

The destructive force of a 25ft surge: that is our greatest concern. It can really cause catastrophic results

  • From there, Irma is set to scrape the north of Cuba before heading to southern Florida and the Florida Keys, where a full-scale hurricane warning is in place and mass evacuations have been ordered before expected landfall on Saturday.
  • Cuba is evacuating tourists from coastal resorts and warning residents to move inland.
  • On Thursday night Irma crossed north of Haiti, causing less damage than had been feared in the beleaguered country. There were reports of some injuries and damage to buildings, but not widespread devastation.
  • The hurricane also pummelled the Turks and Caicos Islands, where power failed and the governor, John Freeman, warned residents:

Hunker down, stay where you are … Nobody can get to you – people are, for a little while, on their own.

  • Across the Caribbean, at least 13 people are confirmed to have died in the storm: an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, four in the US Virgin Islands, and four in the French territory of St Martin.
  • Lonnie Soury, a spokesman for the US Virgin Islands, said the toll was expected to rise.
  • The UK, France and the Netherlands have mobilised personnel and aid for their overseas territories that were caught in the onslaught.
  • After complaints that the British government’s response has been slow, ministers authorised £32m in emergency aid and dispatched a military task group. HMS Ocean – currently in the Mediterranean – will be deployed but will take 10-14 days to reach the Caribbean.
  • A voluntary evacuation began from the tiny island of Barbuda – where upwards of 90% of homes were destroyed – to its larger sister island of Antigua, with the prospect of Hurricane Jose, a category 3 storm, striking this weekend.

From its current havoc in the Bahamas, Hurricane Irma is set to move across northern Cuba before hitting southern Florida and making its way up the state.

Governor Rick Scott has warned that the storm will be “bigger than our entire state” – as forecast images confirm:

Irma has now whipped a path from Barbuda in the east to, currently, the Bahamas, with the north of Cuba and then Florida still in its sights.

We have been monitoring the effects of the category 5 storm on each island, as reports come in of casualties and damage:

On an official visit to Greece, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was repeatedly forced to defend his decision to defer a trip to St Martin and other islands devastated by the storm.

Addressing reporters in Athens where he was conducting his first overseas visit, the French leader said he had decided to go ahead with the two-day trip to Greece, rather than attempt to head to the Caribbean, because prevailing weather conditions would not have permitted him to fly to French territories hit by Hurricane Irma.

“As soon as the weather allows I will go,” he said, adding that he was being constantly updated and the French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, was following developments closely.

Macron said he had left for Greece after an emergency government meeting in Paris.

Latest hurricane warnings

The latest advisory from the US National Hurricane Center confirms Irma is passing north of the Bahamas’ Great Inagua island, with wind speeds now of 160mph (260kph) – down from its 185mph peak but still a category five hurricane.

Hurricane warnings remain in effect for:

  • South-eastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands
  • Central and north-western Bahamas
  • Haiti from the northern border with the Dominican Republic to Le Mole St Nicholas
  • Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, and Villa Clara
  • Jupiter Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Bonita Beach
  • Florida Keys
  • Lake Okeechobee
  • Florida Bay

Updated

Irma is now into the Bahamas archipelago, passing just north of Great Inagua island at the southernmost tip.

Meanwhile – in unconnected news – an earthquake of magnitude 8 has struck off the southern coast of Mexico, prompting a series of possible tsunami warnings. Read more here:

The ongoing effects of Irma – as well as lack of power and communications – are hampering reports from the islands it has already passed over.

Press Association has this from the British Virgin Islands:

Houses were reduced to foundations following the devastating storm.

Images posted on social media showed entire structures razed to the ground, with debris scattered across the streets.

Sharon Flax-Brutus, director of tourism for the group of more than 60 islands, said:

The destruction caused by Hurricane Irma in the British Virgin Islands has been devastating. The destination has lost entire structures and many homes are without roofs, or have been diminished to merely foundations.”

She added communication between the islands has been difficult as mobile phone towers had come down – meaning it was tricky to gauge the full extent of the damage.

Where does Irma go next?

The eye of the storm is moving on to the southern Bahamas. The US National Hurricane Center warned that storm surges could lift water levels in south-eastern and central Bahamas by 15-20ft (4.5-6m) above normal levels.

Bahamas prime minister Hubert Minnis said his government had evacuated people from six islands in the south to the capital, Nassau, in the largest storm evacuation in the country’s history. Airports have been closed.

A hurricane warning is in place in Cuba, where tourists are being evacuated and residents of coastal towns told to move inland.

By late Saturday, Irma is forecast to hit Florida, where mandatory evacuation orders have already been issued for Florida Keys and swaths of southern and coastal Florida. All hospitals in the Florida Keys archipelago will close at 7am Friday, and coast guard and rescue services have left.

Updated

Guylee Simmonds, a volunteer with British charity Hope Health Action, is in Haiti, in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, which on Thursday night bore the brunt of Irma’s outer fringes, and where at least two people have been reported injured.

He says the outcome has been better than most people feared, a relief for a country that has “had some pretty bad luck”:

It’s rained for most of the last 12 hours, but it does look like we haven’t sustained a particularly major hit.

There have been some fairly high wind speeds and heavy rain, but it has not reached the severity we had been expecting. But there’s going to be ongoing bad weather for a couple of days I expect, and in Haiti a lot of the poorest communities here are at high risk of flooding.

It’s incredibly fortunate that the storm has passed a bit further north. Our thoughts are with Turks and Caicos.

He said the hospital he worked at was preparing to see an influx of patients once the scale of damage became clear:

We were operating with skeleton staff. We reduced our outpatient care in the leadup to the storm, but our inpatient care remained. We were already close to capacity.

I expect outpatient care won’t resume until the following day as we assess any damage done. I expect people with worse constructed homes will have sustained more damage.

We’ll see what daylight brings.

A woman protects herself from rain brought by Hurricane Irma as she eats lunch in a street of Cap-Haitien, Haiti, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares
People take shelter in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti. Photograph: Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters

Irma was the first time the Turks and Caicos islands had experienced a category 5 hurricane.

Ahead of its arrival, Virginia Clerveaux, director of disaster management and emergencies for the island group, warned:

We are expecting inundation from both rainfall as well as storm surge. And we may not be able to come rescue [people] in a timely manner.

The few tourists who remained on the Turks and Caicos islands were in hotels, as were some locals, Reuters reports.

A Reuters witness described the roof and walls of a well-built house shaking hard as the screaming storm rocked the island of Providenciales and caused a drop in pressure that could be felt in people’s chests.

Among the properties forced to evacuate in Florida is President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the Miami Herald reports:

President Donald Trump’s seaside Mar-a-Lago resort has been ordered to evacuate because of Hurricane Irma, along with the barrier islands and low-lying areas of Palm Beach County.

Trump has returned repeatedly to the private club – which he bought in 1985 – to relax and conduct state business since becoming president.

Mar-a-Lago, which overlooks the ocean on Palm Beach, was built in 1927. Summer is the slow tourist season in South Florida.

Trump also owns three golf courses in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, as well as an 11-bedroom mansion on the French side of the Caribbean island of St Martin.

Irma is about to make first contact with the Bahamas – specifically, Little Inagua (fortunately uninhabited) at the southernmost tip of the archipelago:

Updated

Florida is locking down, Associated Press reports:

Nasa secured Kennedy Space Center and SpaceX launched an unmanned rocket for an experimental flight. Kennedy closed its doors to all nonessential staff and a crew of about 120 people will ride out the storm on site.

Most of the critical buildings at Kennedy are designed to withstand gusts of up to 135mph (220kph). Irma’s wind could exceed that if it reaches Cape Canaveral.

Hurricane Jose is making its way towards Caribbean islands already battered by Irma.

The US National Hurricane Center says Jose – a category 3 hurricane – “is expected to be near the northern Leeward Islands on Saturday”.

This covers Barbuda, Antigua and Anguilla, the islands first hit by Irma.

The Miami weather service has warned people in south Florida to make urgent plans to seek safety, saying:

This is a potentially deadly situation!

Residents and visitors must now implement emergency safety plans.

Preparations to protect life and property should be completed by Friday night.

Take final shelter by early Saturday morning.

Latest hurricane warnings

The US National Hurricane Center says the following locations are now subject to official hurricane warnings:

  • Jupiter Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Bonita Beach
  • Florida Keys
  • Lake Okeechobee
  • Florida Bay
  • Haiti from the northern border with the Dominican Republic to Le Mole St Nicholas
  • South-eastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands
  • Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, and Villa Clara
  • Central Bahamas
  • North-western Bahamas

Hurricane Irma breaks yet another record – now the longest lasting Atlantic storm this year:

Irma is currently over the Turks and Caicos Islands, moving westwards towards the south-eastern Bahamas throughout Thursday night.

The hurricane will then track between the Bahamas and northern Cuba before hitting southern Florida.

This latest forecast says “severe hurricane conditions” are now expected to begin to hit the Florida peninsula and Florida Keys late on Saturday.

Storm surges and high winds are expected to hit the southern part of the state.

Updated

The advice from the US National Hurricane Center has moved Florida into the official hurricane warning group for the first time.

The areas covered by the warnings cover south Florida and the Florida Keys.

As the NHC explains:

A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected somewhere within the warning area. Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.

A storm surge warning means there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, during the next 36 hours in the indicated locations.

This is a life-threatening situation. Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions. Promptly follow evacuation and other instructions from local officials.

Hurricane and storm surge warnings issued for Florida

The latest update from the US National Hurricane Center issues upgraded warnings for South Florida and the Florida Keys:

  • A hurricane warning has been issued from Jupiter Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Bonita Beach, as well as for the Florida Keys, Lake Okeechobee, and Florida Bay.
  • A storm surge warning has been issued from Jupiter Inlet southward around the Florida peninsula to Bonita Beach, as well as for the Florida Keys.

“We had cars flying over our head, we had 40ft containers flying left and right,” said Knacyntar Nedd, chairwoman of the Barbuda council. “People were literally tying themselves to roofs with ropes to hold them down.”

“What we experienced is like something you see in a horror movie, not something you expect to actually happen in reality,” Nedd told the local ABS television.

Among the most traumatised survivors were those who tried to ride Irma out at home. “When the first part came, it was like the whole house was ripping apart,” said Jacqueline Bisa, who was in her home with seven relatives.

They took shelter in a closet and the bathroom but the winds were so fierce they had to hang on to the door to keep it closed until they could be evacuated. “It was like it was sucking us up,” she said the next morning.

Several older residents with long experience of the fierce winds churned up by the Atlantic in hurricane season described Irma as unprecedented.

“Last night was the most devastating experience I have had in my life and I am almost 60,” said a man who gave his name as King Goldilocks. “Who hasn’t lost their roof, their house crumbled, like me? I am totally homeless.”

As well as winds of 185mph (295kph), Irma also dumped 11 inches (28cm) of rain on parts of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico as it passed:

Cuba is evacuating tourists as Irma approaches, Reuters reports:

Cuba started evacuating some of the 51,000 tourists visiting the island, particularly 36,000 people at resorts on the picturesque northern coast.

That included all Canadian tourists, who Cuban tourism minister Manuel Marrero estimated made up 60% of foreign visitors in the country’s keys.

In Caibarien, a coastal town in the hurricane’s predicted path, residents piled mattresses and a television in a car to get farther inland.

“The roof here is rotten so it will just fly away. Everything will get ruined if we leave it here,” said Miriam Faife. “I’m scared.”

Police escort a convoy of buses carrying tourists evacuated from Caibarien.
Police escort a convoy of buses carrying tourists evacuated from Caibarien. Photograph: Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images

Haiti has felt the edges of Hurricane Irma as it careered away from the Dominican Republic towards the Turks and Caicos Islands, and reports so far suggest it has been spared the worst effects of the category 5.

But the north of Haiti, including the port city of Cap-Haïtien, have experienced heavy rainfall and strong winds from Irma’s outer fringes as it passed. There are reports of buildings damaged and trees felled.

Two people were reportedly injured in Cap-Haïtien when a tree crashed into their home.

And a bridge linking the Dominican Republic to Haiti has collapsed.

Captain Stephen Russell, of the Bahamas national emergency management agency, has told CNN of the approaching hurricane:

We are prepared as best as we can be.

He says some people are in shelters, but most who were evacuated from southern islands have sought refuge with family members and friends.

We are urging all persons throughout the Bahamas – whether they are visitors, residents, in the Bahamas at this time – to find a way to safeguard themselves from the impact of Hurricane Irma …

Find a safe place, a safe shelter.

He says people in low-lying areas should seek to move to higher ground, away from the coast into the interior.

He says a storm surge of up to 25ft (7.6m) could be witnessed.

The destructive force of a 25ft surge: that is our greatest concern. It can really cause catastrophic results

Turks and Caicos is currently suffering Irma’s attack.

Virginia Clerveaux, director of the Turks and Caicos department of disaster management and emergencies, told the BBC that people had been asked to find safe shelter:

We are now trying to remind them that this is a category five, and in the history of the Turks and Caicos islands this is the largest storm we have ever been impacted or threatened by.

The highest point on the islands is only 163ft (50m) and the US National Hurricane Center has warned that Irma could bring waves of 15-20 feet (4.5-6 metres) above normal levels.

Updated

Irma continues its sobering record-breaking streak: with sustained wind speeds of 185mph (295kph) for 33 hours, it is the longest storm of such intensity since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s.

Wind speeds have now dipped slightly to 175mph over the Turks and Caicos Islands, still a category 5 hurricane.

The five living former US presidents – Barack Obama, the two George Bushes, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter – have launched a fundraising drive, the One America appeal.

Originally conceived to help victims of Hurricane Harvey, the appeal will now be expanded to aid Americans affected by Hurricane Irma, the donations website says.

Irma remains a category five hurricane with wind speeds of 175mph (280kph) – slightly down from its peak of 185mph – as it batters the Turks and Caicos Islands.

This image shows the eye of Irma as it passes right over the islands:

And this shows the intensity as Irma passed across Anguilla, St Martin, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico before heading to Turks and Caicos:

Florida governor Rick Scott has ordered all state offices, schools, colleges and universities to close from Friday until at least Monday “to ensure we have every space available for sheltering and staging”.

Scott added:

Every family must be prepared to evacuate.

A voluntary evacuation began on Thursday from the tiny island of Barbuda – where upwards of 90% of homes were destroyed – to its larger sister island of Antigua.

Barbuda also faces the prospect of Hurricane Jose, currently a category 3 storm, striking this weekend.

Website 365Antigua says supplies are needed for evacuees arriving from Barbuda, including for several babies who are expected on a boat in around an hour from now:

25 babies will be coming in from Barbuda on the 10pm boat. All items such as formula, bottles, diapers, blankets, wipes will be needed.

Please bring these items to multi-purpose center, St John’s, Antigua.

Updated

Concerning news from Florida, via Associated Press:

As Hurricane Irma threatens to pound Miami with winds of mind-boggling power, a heavyweight hazard looms over the city’s skyline: two dozen enormous construction cranes.

Because those cranes were not designed to withstand a storm of Irma’s ferocity, city officials are telling people who live in the shadows of the giant devices to leave.

Construction sites across Irma’s potential path in Florida are being locked down to prevent building materials, tools and debris from becoming flying missiles in hurricane winds.

The horizontal arms of the tall tower cranes, however, will remain loose despite the potential danger of collapse. City officials say they cannot be tied down or moved.

Miami officials say it would take two weeks to move the cranes. The counterbalance on tower cranes weigh up to 30,000lb (13,600kg).

Officials have expressed concerned that cranes dotting the Miami skyline are not designed to withstand Irma’s category 5 winds.
Officials have expressed concerned that cranes dotting the Miami skyline are not designed to withstand Irma’s category 5 winds. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

Death toll in US Virgin Islands rises to four

A government spokesman has said four people are now known to have been killed by Hurricane Irma in the US Virgin Islands, taking the total confirmed across the Caribbean so far to at least 13.

USVI spokesman Lonnie Soury said the death toll could rise:

We are not sanguine that there aren’t more.

Other confirmed fatalities include an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico and four in the French territory of St Martin.

John Freeman, the governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands, has been speaking to CNN as Hurricane Irma reaches the islands. Freeman says the message to people there is:

Hunker down, stay where you are … Nobody can get to you either – people are, for a little while, on their own.

He says authorities took steps before the storms came, moving some people to shelters, and bringing heavily pregnant women and dialysis patients into hospitals.

Power is out, he says:

Water production goes down, of course, with the electricity. On Grand Turk, the water went down quite early because the electricity went down quite early.

But, Freeman adds, “people here have been used to hurricanes” and have been collecting water before the winds hit.

Irma hits Turks and Caicos Islands

The US National Hurricane Center has issued an update on Irma’s progress. Here are the key points:

  • Irma is currently hitting the Turks and Caicos Islands
  • The hurricane is currently 55 miles (85km) west-south-west of Grand Turk, with maximum sustained winds of 175mph (280kmh).
  • Hurricane warnings remain in place for Turks and Caicos, Haiti, south-eastern, central and north-western Bahamas, western parts of the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.
  • A hurricane warning means “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion” in those areas as hurricane conditions are expected.

Updated

Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló has also declared a disaster in the tiny islands of Culebra and Vieques, to Puerto Rico’s east, which were hard-hit by the storm.

So far there has been little information from the islands about the extent of the damage there.

Even as Irma continues to wreak havoc across the Caribbean, attention turns to recovery for those islands already hit.

Many affected islands have links with the UK, France, US and the Netherlands, and those countries have mobilised – some less speedily than others – to engage in relief efforts.

The French interior minister, Gerard Collomb, said the country had sent 100,000 food rations – four days of supplies – to its overseas collectivities of St Martin and Saint Barthélemy:

It’s a tragedy. We’ll need to rebuild both islands. Most of the schools have been destroyed.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said the storm had “caused wide-scale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses” on St Maarten, the Netherlands-administered part of St Martin:

There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. 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.

The US military is sending troops to the US Virgin Islands, where governor Kenneth Mapp described the situation as “very chilling”.

Britain said it was sending troops and the HMS Ocean – currently in the Mediterranean – to Anguilla, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands.

Irma now has Haiti in its sights. Authorities there have admitted they are ill-prepared for the category five onslaught, with the risks of flash flooding and landslides high.

Heavy rain is already pummelling the north coast and several areas have already lost power.

This is Claire Phipps picking up the live blog.

In the British Virgin Islands, governor Gus Jaspert has declared a state of emergency in the wake of Irma – and with Hurricane Jose threatening to reach them this weekend.

Jaspert asked people on the BVI to avoid using roads unless “absolutely necessary” in order to prioritise emergency services. He added:

I would like to appeal to you to remain calm and to reassure we are doing all we can to assist you.

Please, could any public service organisation or anyone with a truck that could offer assistance and have not made contact with the [national emergency operations centre], do so now.

Let us all continue to help each other however we can and continue to pray for each other, may God bless and protect the territory and our people.

What we know so far

  • The eye of Hurricane Irma, still a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 175mph (290kph), has moved westward off the northern coast of Hispaniola, its arms raking across Dominican Republic and Haiti. The storm is currently bearing down on the British territories of Turks and Caicos, and projected to move toward the southern Bahamas.
  • At least 12 people have been confirmed dead in the wake of the storm. The confirmed fatalities include an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, three in the US Virgin Islands, and four in the French territory of St Martin.
  • Thousands more remain in shelters, their homes damaged or destroyed. In Puerto Rico, almost a million people are without power and 50,000 without water, according to the US territory’s department of emergency relief.
  • South Florida was placed on watch, with more than 750,000 people ordered to evacuate barrier islands and coastal areas. The NWS warned that storm surges of five to 10ft (up to 3 metres) could begin in the next 48 hours. Governor Rick Scott said that a storm surge moved by a storm this strong “could cover your house”, and pleaded with residents not to underestimate the hurricane. More than 500,000 people were ordered to evacuate from coastal Georgia.
  • “Every Florida family must be prepared to evacuate regardless of the coast you live on,” Scott said, stressing the gigantic scale of the storm. “We can rebuild your home but we cannot rebuild your life.”
  • The storm is expected to descend somewhere on the Florida coast on Friday night or early Saturday, though it remains unclear where or when exactly the hurricane will fall the mainland. The Keys will have no rescue services or hospitals from Friday morning onward, authorities warned.
  • The National Weather Service warned residents that winds and floods could make buildings “uninhabitable for weeks or months”, and authorities raced to bring fuel to areas with shortages.
  • On Barbuda, prime minister Gaston Browne said Irma had made 90% of the tiny island’s structures “literally rubble” and that half the population was homeless. On French-administered St Martin, local councilman Daniel Gibbs told a local radio station “95% of the island is destroyed”. French authorities have sent naval ships with supplies to the island, and the UK has sent a vessel with supplies to its Virgin Islands territories.
  • In Haiti and the Dominican Republican, authorities closed all schools. Haitian president Jovenal Moïse urged people in rural areas to head to shelters and out of the mountains. On the Bahamas, prime minister Hubert Minnis ordered people to leave six southern islands, the largest evacuation in the country’s history.
  • East of the Caribbean, hurricane Jose grew to a category three storm, on course to strike some of the small islands that have barely emerged from Irma’s winds.

The governor of Puerto Rico is meeting with residents and surveying the damage, writing on Twitter: “our people of Culbera and their city government can count on the support and attention of the central government for their recovery.”

And in Dominican Republic, United Nations staff begin to take stock of what’s left from Irma’s recent departure.

Northbound routes out of Florida have become jammed with traffic, as more than half a million people flee southern evacuation zones of the state and airports prepare for their final flights before closing on Friday. Hundreds of thousands more were ordered to evacuate coastal areas of Georgia, as the state’s governor prepared for worst-case scenarios.

The AP reports from I-95 and I-75, the largest roads leading north out of Florida and Georgia.

Mari and Neal Michaud loaded their two children and dog into their small sport-utility vehicle and left their home near Cocoa Beach about 10am, bound for an impromptu vacation in Washington, D.C. Using a phone app and calls to search for fuel along the way, they finally arrived at a convenience store that had gasoline nearly five hours later.

The 60-mile trip up Interstate 95 should have taken an hour, said Mari Michaud.

“There was no gas and it’s gridlock. People are stranded on the sides of the highway,” she said. “It’s 92 degrees out and little kids are out on the grass on the side of the road. No one can help them.”

Noel Marsden said he, his girlfriend, her son and their dog left Pembroke Pines north of Miami with plans to ride out Irma in Savannah, only to find the city was also shutting down because of Irma. Marsden isn’t sure where they’ll all end up.

“I’ve got a buddy in Atlanta and a buddy in Charlotte. We’ll wind up one of those two places because there are not hotels, I can tell you that,” he said.

The last time Georgia was struck by a hurricane of force Category 3 or higher happened in 1898. The last Category 5 storm to hit Florida was Andrew in 1992. Its winds topped 165 mph (265 kph), killing 65 people and inflicting $26 billion in damage. It was at the time the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

Hurricane Irma evacuating traffic streaming out of Florida creeps along northbound Interstate 75.
Hurricane Irma evacuating traffic streaming out of Florida creeps along northbound Interstate 75. Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA

Updated

Death toll rises to 12 confirmed

The Associated Press reports that three people have died in the US Virgin Islands, according to American officials there.

Governor spokesman Samuel Topp said Thursday that the deaths occurred in the St. Thomas and St. Johns district. Officials say crews are clearing many roads that remain inaccessible. The category storm destroyed homes, schools and roads as it roared through the northeast Caribbean this week and heads toward Florida.

Nine other people were confirmed killed by the storm around the Caribbean: an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, and four in the French territory of St Martin. France’s interior minister at first said eight people had been killed, but the nation’s prime minister later said he could only confirm four killed. Officials said they expect the toll to increase as search and rescue efforts begin.

More than 250,000 people have been ordered to evacuate from parts of Palm Beach County, officials said, effective Friday morning at 10am local time.

The areas include barrier islands, areas near Jupiter, mobile homes, and low coastal areas and neighborhoods and towns along the intracostal waterways running up and down the coast. The storm surge, in particular, will be unusually large and dangerous.

“It’s not something that we’ve seen in our lifetime. The strength of this storm is remarkable and it’s not remarkable in a good way,” a local official says at a press briefing.”

County officials are urging people who are not in evacuation zones to have battery-powered lights, extra charges for cell phones, bottled water, and sealed food, among other supplies. “It may be days before public assistance can get to you,” the official says.

He adds that there are four general population shelters opening in the county on Friday at 3pm local time. “The message from the state, from the governor, is that there are a lot of people on the highway, a lot of people trying to get some place, and the roads are not able to handle that.”

Florida falls squarely in 5pm forecast

American forecasters have just updated their projections for Irma with an ominous tack west, toward Miami-Dade County – the most populous county in Florida – and a path through the center of the state.

Updated

Hurricane Jose grows to category 3

The National Weather Service has upgrade hurricane Jose, currently east of the Caribbean and heading toward the same islands just struck by Irma, to a category three storm, with additional growth possible in the next 24 to 36 hours.

Hurricane watches are in effect for Antigua and Barbuda, and tropical storm watches for Anguilla, Montserrat, St Kitts, and Nevis – islands that all either suffered brutal storms or narrowly avoided devastation from Irma.

As recovery workers reach St Maarten, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico in the wake of Irma, so do photographers, conveying the scope of the storm.

A photo provided by the Dutch Defense Ministry showing storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, in St. Maarten.
A photo provided by the Dutch Defense Ministry showing storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, in St. Maarten. Photograph: Gerben van Es/AP
View of a flooded church in Villa Vasquez, Dominican Republi.
View of a flooded church in Villa Vasquez, Dominican Republic. Photograph: Luis Tavarez/EPA
Wreckage in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood in the aftermath of the hurricane Irma, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Wreckage in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood in the aftermath of the hurricane Irma, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photograph: Thais Llorca/EPA

Though a northward swerve appears increasingly unlikely for hurricane Irma before landfall on Florida, Georgia governor Nathan Deal has ordered mandatory evacuations from coastal areas of his state.

Like his colleagues in Florida, Deal appears to be taking no chances with Irma’s general northern trajectory, ordering people to prepare and leave the area sooner rather than later. The state’s emergency services have provided maps and more detail about the areas affected by the order.

Updated

Time is running out for flights departing from southern Florida. Fort Lauderdale airport, which is with Miami International one of the major hubs of south Florida, will close its doors on Friday evening.

Miami International has not yet said when its last flight will depart before the storm, but warned people that it should not be considered a haven from the hurricane. “The airport is not a designated shelter during a storm, and operational needs at MIA may require occupants to be evacuated to nearby shelters. Resources like food and water may also not be readily available in the airport during or after the storm.”

Updated

Eric Blake, a National Hurricane Center scientist, has described Irma in stark, dire terms, urging people to listen to emergency managers and do everything possible to protect themselves and loved ones.

“This hurricane is as serious as any I have seen. No hype, just the hard facts. Take every life saving precaution you can,” Blake tweeted. “I have little doubt #Irma will go down as one of the most infamous in Atlantic hurricane history.”

“Trust the NHC professionals for the best possible forecast. Protect you and your loved ones. I hope I have a house to return to. I know it sounds dire. But a Category 4/5 into South Florida is one of those scenarios that sends chills.”

In Samana, in the eastern Dominican Republic, the United Nations Development Programme is among the international effort to send experts to help recovery.

Alejandro Adames, a photographer with the organization, has sent along photos of some of the destruction: structures sliding into the sea, a road with a cavernous space eroded beneath it, downed wires and trees. Irma is moving north of Hispanolia, on course between the island and the British territories of Turks and Caicos, heading toward the southern Bahamas.

Beth Carroll, a coordinator with the Catholic Relief Services, is in Haiti on the other side of the island, which has suffered raking winds from the titanic hurricane. “Poor drainage in the low-lying northern coastal areas mean that even a small amount of rain can cause extensive flooding,” she said. “The rain and winds expected from Irma, which promises to be a monster of a storm, will potentially cause catastrophic flooding and landslides. That’s why we are so concerned now.”

Samana, the Dominican Republic.
Samana, the Dominican Republic. Photograph: Alejandro Adames/UNDP-GEF.
Samana, the Dominican Republic.
Samana, the Dominican Republic. Photograph: Alejandro Adames/UNDP-GEF.
Samana, the Dominican Republic.
Samana, the Dominican Republic. Photograph: Alejandro Adames/UNDP-GEF.

Florida governor Rick Scott has stressed time and again the frustrating, dangerous unpredictability of hurricanes, noting that a sudden swerve remains entirely possible and could either spare the state or exacerbate a collision. The Washington Post has compiled a list of some possible courses – with many caveats – excerpted here:

  • Scathing winds but landfall averted: “In this scenario, Miami would be spared the dangerous right-hand side of the storm. Hurricanes are most dangerous to the right of their center, since their rotating winds couple with the storm’s forward motion, making the gusts inside that much stronger.
    If the center tracks just offshore, Miami would would still contend with serious storm conditions with winds sustained between 55-75mph and gusts to 90, along with 4 to 7 inches of rain. This would occur in the Saturday-Sunday timeframe.
    While the storm’s the western eyewall would pass just offshore of Miami in this scenario, storms of Irma’s intensity are subject to “trochoidal wobbles.” Think of a hurricane like a spinning top; because the top rotates so quickly, it way jog left or right a little bit as it treks along while rotating furiously. Irma is the same way. A wobble of just a few miles west or east as she passes Miami could thrust the city into extreme danger, so this is a high-stakes forecast.”
  • Landfall near Miami: “Some models turn the hurricane northward late enough that it cannot avoid slamming into Southeast Florida. In this scenario, the system may make landfall in Southern Florida as a major hurricane of at least Category 4 strength. A large-scale disaster would likely result.
    Major population centers, like Miami, would be exposed to the destructive winds of the hurricane eyewall, in which gusts may exceed 140mph. A catastrophic storm surge would sweep ashore, while devastating inland flooding would result from excessive rainfall.”
  • Northward through Florida: “In this scenario, Irma would move ashore somewhere between the Keys and Miami. All of Florida would see wind and rain, but the heaviest would be relegated to areas south of Route 75, including the Everglades, Homestead, and Key Biscayne.
    The worst conditions would sweep ashore to the right side of the eye, exposing the Miami metro area to extreme hurricane-force winds, a surge of at least several feet, and torrential downpours.”
  • A veer west: “A few model outliers hang on to the possibility that the storm rides up the west coast of Florida, then Key West, Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa, and Tallahassee would face the brunt of the storm – similar to Scenario 2 for southeast and eastern Florida. The most destructive winds and devastating storm surge would occur in Southwest Florida, assuming that’s where the center first came ashore.”

Florida governor: 'storm surges could cover your house'

Florida governor Rick Scott has again urged people up and down his state to prepare for worst case scenarios of the hurricane.

He notes that Floridians can go to JaxReady.com for more information, or the state’s Department of Emergency Management. If people are in need of hotels, he says Expedia is offering Florida-specific service, that JetBlue has capped flights out of Florida at $99, and that the app GasBuddy can help guide residents toward fuel. He again urges people to know their evacuation zone, and to act immediately if they are in a mandatory area.

Another official warns that if the storm stays on its current path, mandatory evacuation zones will expand, and more people will need to head north or to inland shelters. Scott says that the extraordinarily powerful winds of the storm mean it will not likely deluge Florida, like hurricane Harvey did to Texas. But it will

“My biggest concern right now is that people are not taking seriously enough the risk of storm surge,” Scott says. “A storm surge, we could have five to 10 feet of storm surge, it could cover your house.”

He also reiterates a warning about the unpredictable nature of the storm, that it could move east or west at a surprising moment: “this storm has the potential to catastrophically devastate our state, and you have to take this seriously.”

“It’s already killed a lot of people in the Caribbean, don’t think you can ride out this storm,” Scott says. “I cannot stress this enough: get prepared now.”

Finally, Scott pleads for more volunteers to help with shelters, food distribution, and other response efforts, saying the state needs 17,000 people in all to help. Volunteers can call 1.800.FLHELP1, he says.

Florida Governor Rick Scott gives an update to the media.
Florida Governor Rick Scott gives an update to the media. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Updated

Florida senator Marco Rubio has urged residents to act now, in the final hours before Irma makes landfall on the American mainland, most likely on the southern coast of his state. Governor Rick Scott is giving an afternoon press conference with the latest information on preparations, which we’ll have updates from shortly.

Miami-Dade expands evacuation zones

Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade, has expanded evacuation orders to more coastal and increasingly inland regions.

The county had already ordered evacuations in Miami Beach and other barrier islands (Zone A and parts of Zone B); Gimenez has now ordered evacuations for Miami’s main financial and downtown condo districts (the rest of Zone B) and inland districts like South Miami and Coral Gables (Zone C). The orders affect more than 500,000 people.

The Miami Herald has more details on the orders, and Gimenez has urged residents to look at MiamiDade.gov for more information.

As hurricane Irma barrels through the Caribbean on its course toward the mainland United States, people who have survived its passage or are still preparing for it have captured stunning, surreal images of the storm: boats stacked atop each other in the Virgin Islands, swelling turbid floods in Puerto Rico, Mustangs driving off to homemade barricades in Florida.

Donald Trump has declared a disaster for the US Virgin Islands, according to Thomas Bossert, a national security adviser to the president, and the UK has sent a military task for to its adjacent territories along with millions of pounds

Britain has released £32m in emergency aid for its territories, as well as the ship HMS Ocean, carrying at least three helicopters, and hundreds of marines and royal engineers who will be sent in RAF transport planes. The trip ship will take 10 days to two weeks to reach the islands from the Mediterranean.

The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour reports:

The increased resources, and military hardware, came after an overnight assessment sent to the cabinet emergency committee Cobra concluded the devastation on the British overseas territories of Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands was worse than feared. Aid was increased from a planned £12m to £32m after Cobra met.

At least one person has been confirmed dead in Anguilla and there are concerns that another British overseas territory – the low-lying Turks and Caicos Islands – is in the line of the storm and likely to be battered. Evacuations have begun and tropical-force rains were expected to begin on Thursday afternoon local time.

Philip Levine, the mayor of Miami Beach, has told CNN that Irma is “a nuclear hurricane” and that all residents and visitors to the area should leave.

“This is a very serious, incredibly powerful storm. I call it a nuclear hurricane,” Levine said. “I recommend and strongly urge all our residents and visitors to leave Miami Beach. I’m aggressively going out there telling everyone get out of Miami Beach.”

Levine said that buses and city trolleys are working to get people off the barrier of Miami Beach and inland, toward shelters around Miami-Dade county. He warned people that first responders will be working to save people after the worst of the storm, but will be unable to help people in the most dangerous areas – such as Miami Beach and the Florida Keys – once the storm has reached them.

“When that storm hits we’re not going to put the lives of our first responders in jeopardy,” Levine said. “We don’t want heroes. This isn’t about devastation, it’s about evacuation.”

He added that although most of the city’s buildings built after hurricane Andrew, a devastating category five storm that hit Florida in 1992, are built to withstand such storms, people should take no chances. “I wouldn’t trust any building code, any building promise,” the mayor said. “I never thought I’d say this but leave Miami Beach, get out of Miami Beach.’

A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beac.
A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beac. Photograph: Bryan Woolston/Reuters

Little has changed with Irma’s trajectory with the 2pm eastern update, meaning huge consequences for millions of people in Florida are dependent on tiny, last minute changes in the course of the hurricane, notes meteorologist Ryan Maue.

Farther east in the Atlantic, hurricane Jose has grown to a category two storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105mph.

Hurricane Irma has left Puerto Rico with at least three dead and thousands more without power or water, but the island’s residents and government have allowed themselves a sigh of relief that the storm did not move slightly south, wreaking the same devastation as other islands more directly in its path.

Reuters reports from San Juan, where street signs, powerlines, and trees have fallen across the roads and onto buildings.

The storm’s eye did not come ashore in Puerto Rico but roared past with 185mph winds and hammered the coast with 30ft waves.“It was really not as bad as we had feared,” said Omar Alvarez, 53, a real state appraiser. “We had very high winds but we got lucky.”

“It was mostly wind, not water. In Hugo, the water came up to here,” he said, referring to the 1989 hurricane that had flooded his street just three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

Governor Ricardo Rossello warned the storm was expected to continue to drop rain on the island’s western side, raising the risk of landslides. Rescuers still were working in the island’s northeast, raising the possibility that more bodies could be discovered.

Some 6,300 people and 500 pets remained in shelters in the storm’s wake early Thursday.

Aftermath from Hurricane Irma in Puerto Rico in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood.
Aftermath from Hurricane Irma in Puerto Rico in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood. Photograph: Thais Llorca/EPA

“The Harvey experience had an effect of people,” lawyer Nereida Melendez, 59, said as she walked along a beach-side road covered in sand and palm leaves. “It just showed them what can happen. It made them take it more seriously.”

“Mostly what has happened here is that there is no electricity and a lot of trees are down,” said Rafael Ojeda, a 49-year-old lawyer. “Let’s see how fast the electricity comes back up.”

The storm came at a bad time for Puerto Rico, which is in the midst of trying to restructure some $70 billion in debts. Ojeda worried that and the demand for quick repairs to the power grid could lead to longer-term problems.

“The infrastructure is old and if you’re going to just patch it up and not fix it, the next time it is going to go,” he said.

Wreckage in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood.
Wreckage in the vicinity of the Santurce neighborhood. Photograph: Thais Llorca/EPA

What we know so far

  • The eye of Hurricane Irma, still a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 180mph (290kph), moved westward off the northern coast of Hispaniola on Thursday morning, its winds raking the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The storm’s projected path Thursday brings it almost directly over the British possessions of Turks and Caicos, followed by a course near the southern Bahamas.
  • At least nine people have been confirmed dead in the wake of the storm, and as many as 13 reported killed. The confirmed fatalities include an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, three people in Puerto Rico, and four in the French territory of St Martin.
  • Thousands more remain in shelters, their homes damaged or destroyed. In Puerto Rico, almost a million people are without power and 50,000 without water, according to the US territory’s department of emergency relief.
  • Southern Florida was placed on hurricane watch, with warnings that storm surges of five to 10ft could begin in the next 48 hours. The National Weather Service warned residents that winds and floods could make buildings “uninhabitable for weeks or months”, and authorities raced to bring fuel to areas with shortages.
  • “Every Florida family must be prepared to evacuate regardless of the coast you live on,” governor Rick Scott said, stressing the gigantic scale of the storm. “We can rebuild your home but we cannot rebuild your life.”
  • The storm is expected to hit the Florida Keys on Friday night and make landfall on the mainland early Saturday, though it remains unclear where exactly the hurricane will hit the mainland. The Keys will have no rescue services or hospitals from Friday onward, authorities warned.
  • On Barbuda, prime minister Gaston Browne said Irma had made 90% of the tiny island’s structures “literally rubble” and that half the population was homeless. On French-administered St Martin, local councilman Daniel Gibbs told a local radio station “95% of the island is destroyed”. French authorities have sent naval ships with supplies to the island.
  • In Haiti and the Dominican Republican, authorities closed all schools. Haitian president Jovenal Moïse urged people in rural areas to head to shelters and out of the mountains. “The hurricane is not a game,” he said in a television address. On the Bahamas, prime minister Hubert Minnis ordered people to leave six southern islands, the largest evacuation in the country’s history.
  • Already one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, Irma held sustained winds of 185mph for over 24 hours before it slowed to its current speed, making it the most enduring hurricane since the 1960s when satellite monitoring began. President Donald Trump has declared states of emergency in the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Florida.

NWS Miami: prepare for 'uninhabitable' swaths

The Miami station of the National Weather Station has issued a dire warning for the potential effects of the storm on southern Florida, in particular tornado-force winds and huge storm surges.

The main window of concern for hurricane Irma, impacts is early Saturday morning through Monday. Additional concerns exist for flooding rains, isolated tornadoes, significant beach erosion and surf, coastal flooding, and life-threatening rip currents.

Florida residents should be prepared for the possibility that homes and buildings may be entirely “uninhabitable for weeks or months”, the station warned.

Wind: prepare for life-threatening wind having possible devastating impacts across south Florida. Potential impacts include:

    • Structural damage to sturdy buildings, some with complete roof adn wall failures. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Damage greatly accentuated by large airbone projectiles. Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months.
    • Numerous large trees snapped or uprooted along with fences and roadway signs blown over.
    • Many roads impassable from large debris, and more within urban or heavily wooded places. Many bridges, causeways, and access routes impassable.
    • Widespread power communications outages.

Surge: prepare for life-threatening surge having possible devastating impacts across coastal Collier, mainland Monroe, coastal Miami-Dade counties, including Biscayne Bay.

Updated

Donald Trump has said he believes the United States is ready for hurricane Irma, telling reporters, “we think we are as well prepare as we could possibly be.”

Yet he still admitted uncertainty about what will actually happening, as he did on Wednesday, by saying Irma “looks like it could be something that will be not good, believe me, not good.”

On Thursday, he said: “Florida is as well prepared as you can be for something like this and we’ll see what happens. Certainly we are being hit with a lot of hurricanes.”

The president also spoke about the recovery from hurricane Harvey, praising the efforts of the coast guard for saving thousands of lives.
“What could have been a total catastrophe,” he said, “in terms of lives has been much less.”

French officials have cast doubt on the number of fatalities on the territory of St Martin, saying they have confirmed four deaths but not the eight reported by local officials previously. The AFP reports:

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Thursday that four people were confirmed dead on the Caribbean island of St Martin ravaged by Hurricane Irma.

Local rescue officials and Interior Minister Gerard Collomb had previously said the death toll stood at eight.

Philippe said around 50 people were injured, including three seriously, on St Martin and the nearby smaller island of St Barthelemy. Twenty-one have been hospitalised.

He said officials were in the process of identifying the four dead, adding that no deaths were reported from St Barthelemy.

On St Martin, 60% of homes have been damaged so badly that they are uninhabitable, Philippe said, describing the disaster as “unimaginable and unprecedented”.

Power is cut across St Martin as well as supplies of potable water and petrol, he said. Roads are either partly or totally impassable, he added.

However the harbour and airport are back in use, he said, noting that a military plane landed on the island Thursday.

“The work will be long, emotions will run deep and the sadness will be great,” he said.

Updated

On its current course, hurricane Irma is predicted to pass directly over, or quite close to, the British territories of Turk and Caicos on Thursday night, followed by a brush with the southern islands of the Bahamas and Cuba’s northern coast.

On Friday night, the hurricane is expected to land at or pass near the archipelago of the Florida Keys, an area ordered evacuated by the state’s governor, Rick Scott.

It’s unclear exactly where the storm will exactly strike along the coast. Scott warned that it could veer unexpectedly, and that its gigantic size means that the Gulf and Atlantic coasts alike are threatened by severe storm surges and category-four hurricane winds.

hurricane path

Fuel has become such a scarcity in south Florida, and such a priority for governor Rick Scott, that police are escorting tankers and managing gas station service.

Scott said he wanted to avoid the lapses of hurricane Andrew: enough fuel to evacuate, to supply power during the storm, and to speed up the recovery in its aftermath.

The National Weather Service branch of the Florida Keys have warned in the most severe terms that everyone should leave the archipelago, saying in a midday advisory that hurricane conditions are possible within the next 48 hours.

From the advisory:

  • The hurricane’s most likely arrival time is late morning or afternoon Saturday.
  • Storm surges of six to 10ft could push onto the islands, depending on the course of the hurricane.
  • Hurricane force winds – a minimum of 74mph, but almost certainly far higher – extend for about 100 miles across the storm.
  • “There are no coast guard search and rescue assets left in the Keys. The Port of Key West is to officially close 8pm Thursday. The Snake Creek Drawbridge in Islamorada is to be locked down (no openings for marine traffic) at 8pm Thursday.”
Homes are boarded in Key West, Florida.
Homes are boarded in Key West, Florida. Photograph: Olivier Kanuty/AFP/Getty Images

Florida governor Rick Scott has activated 3,000 members of the state national guard, with plans to activate the entire state force – 7,000 people in all – on Friday.

“We are expecting our state to have major impacts from Hurricane Irma and we are taking aggressive actions to make sure Florida is prepared,” Scott said in a statement. “These men and women are putting themselves in harm’s way to save the lives of their fellow Floridians while many of their own families are evacuating. I am proud of their commitment to keeping our families safe.”

Earlier on Thursday, Scott pleaded with residents who have already prepared to help volunteer at shelters and distribution centers. In Key West, the police chief has warned everyone that after Friday, all hospitals will be closed after 7am local time, and there will be no helicopters available for people who choose to defy the mandatory evacuation order.

Three killed in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Irma killed three people as it battered Puerto Rico, with a 79-year-old woman, a younger woman, and a man among the fatalities.

In a statement, governor Ricardo Rossello said that the elderly woman, who needed assistance moving, died after a fall en route to a shelter. A younger woman died in Camuy, on the north-west coast of the island, from electrocution in her home, and a man died from a traffic accident in Canóvanas, in the north-east.

Eight others were reported killed in French St Martin, as well as one person in Anguilla and an infant in Barbuda.

Updated

For the first time in seven years, there are currently three active hurricanes in the Atlantic:

  • The category-five Irma, on course over Turks and Caicos, toward the southern Bahamas, and south Florida;
  • The category-one Katia, gaining strength but stationary in the Gulf of Mexico;
  • The category-one Jose, on a tentative path back toward Barbuda, Antigua, and Puerto Rico – the islands’ second hurricane in three days.

More than a million people in Puerto Rico still lack power, the AP reports, accounting for about 70% of the territory’s Electric Power Authority. There are about 3.4 million people on the island.

Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rossello said Thursday that crews are investigating and until they know the extent of the damage, “it will be difficult to estimate how long the power outage will last.”

Rossello added that ports on the island are still closed, and it’s unclear when commercial flights will resume. Schools and government offices are scheduled to reopen on Monday.

Sea water rises to a water deck as hurricane Irma approaches Puerto Rico in Fajardo.
Sea water rises to a water deck as hurricane Irma approaches Puerto Rico in Fajardo. Photograph: Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images

Storm surge watch for south Florida

The major counties of south Florida – Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Colliers – have been declared under a hurricane watch by state officials. Irma is currently maintaining winds of about 175mph, well above the 74mph minimum for hurricane winds, and officials fear five to 10ft storm surges for southern coastal parts of the peninsula.

Updated

Shipping containers and boats piled up like toys, city blocks leveled, and buildings stripped of whole faces are just a few of the images published online by the Dutch ministry of defense from a helicopter flyby.

The extent of damage, injuries, and possible deaths remains unknown from Dutch St Maarten; at least eight people were killed on the French side of the territory.

The son of British billionaire Richard Branson, Sam, has posted several videos and photographs of the British Virgin Islands on his Instagram page. The images show buildings with their roofs torn from their walls, rebar and debris everywhere, and boats tossed into heaps.

In a text post, Branson said there remains no power in Virgin Gorda, that some bays are flooded, 80% of Cane Garden Bay “destroyed” on the island of Tortola, and that winds and debris remain dangerous.

Airports in the Bahamas are closing as Hurricane Irma nears the islands, the AP reports, while evacuations continue from southern islands closest to the storm’s projected path.

The government says the international airport in Nassau will close late Thursday and it urges people who plan to leave the island chain east of Florida to check with airlines for space.

Grand Bahama’s airport and the less-populated island throughout the chain will close by noon Friday.

The US National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category four or five for the next day or two as it passes just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, nears the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirts Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.

The south Florida counties currently in Irma’s projected course have each provided services for shelters, evacuation, and supply information.

“If you’re in an evacuation area, do not wait to get out,” Scott says. “We can’t save you after the storm starts.”

The governor tells families they should “be aggressive” in steps to protect their families. “This is not a storm you can sit and wait through.”

Despite traffic, he says that roads remain without major problems, and that state authorities are working hard to get fuel back to gas stations and to the public. “I’ve been very clear to the retailers and the oil companies that we have to get the fuel out so that everybody has the fuel to evacuate,” he says. “If you’re concerned you do not have the fuel or supplies to evacuate, call 1.800.955.5504, a dedicated transport hotline.”

Scott says that Expedia is helping provide hotel services for evacuees and Comcast internet services around the state. He says he has requested tarps, water, baby food, supply trucks, personnel and equipment from the federal government; mobilized the federal guard; and received assurances that “anybody that responded to Texas has been demobilized to come to Florida if we need them.”

He makes a plea for volunteers to help with sandbags, shelters, and other state coordination efforts, saying Florida needs thousands more to help. Fuel is a particular priority, he says, not just for evacuations but to get the state’s services – hospitals, shelters, etc – back into working condition. “We’re going to have downed power lines, we’re going to have debris, we’re going to have all those typical things,” he says, recalling the slow and painful recovery from hurricane Andrew. “We’ve got to survive this storm, and then we’ve got to get back

Scott fields a question about Lake Okeechobee and the threat of flooding. “This storm is moving fast so we will not get the same rain that Texas got,” the governor says. “The biggest risk with the dike at Okeechobee is rain.”

He stresses, again, that no one should doubt the danger of this storm. “Every Florida family must be prepared to evacuate regardless of the coast you live on.”

Updated

Florida governor Rick Scott has delivered a press conference to update residents about what the state is doing and what Floridians can do to protect themselves.

Miami Dade county, the most populated in the state, should expect “deadly storm surge and life threatening winds”, Scott says. “We can expect this along the entire east coast,” he continues, with landfall in the Florida Keys as early as Friday night.

“Look at the size of this storm. It is huge,” Scott says. “It is wider than our entire state and could case major and life-threatening impacts on both coasts, coast to coast. Floridians on the west coast cannot be complacent. The west coast will still have hurricane conditions, and these storms can move and change.”

“Remember hurricane Andrew was one of the worst storms in the history of Florida – this is much worse and more devastating in its current path.”

He has ordered mandatory evacuations for two zones in the county, and urged residents to check their zone with Florida’s emergency management authorities. There are also evacuation zones in Collier County and Broward County. “You do not need to evacuate out of the state or hundreds of miles away to stay safe. Find shelters in your county,” Scott says. More than 31,000 people have already evacuated from the Keys.

Updated

In south Florida, gas stations have run out of fuel, stores of water, and hardware stores of plywood. Authorities are scrambling to dole out sandbags and other supplies to shore up homes, while people in coastal stretches are fleeing inland or north. Governor Rick Scott is due to give a press conference within minutes.

Hurricane Irma: what we know so far

Hello and welcome to Thursday’s coverage of Hurricane Irma. Here’s a round-up of the latest news:

  • The eye of Hurricane Irma, still a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 180mph (290kph), moved westward off the northern coast of Hispaniola on Thursday morning, its winds raking the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The storm’s projected path Thursday brings it almost directly over the British possessions of Turks and Caicos, followed by a course near the southern Bahamas.
  • At least 10 people have been reported dead in the wake of the storm: an infant on Barbuda, one person in Anguilla and eight in the French territory of St Martin. Thousands more remain in shelters, their homes damaged or destroyed. In Puerto Rico, almost a million people are without power and 50,000 without water, according to the US territory’s department of emergency relief.
  • Florida governor Rick Scott has ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal stretches of south Florida, including the vulnerable Florida Keys. Fuel shortages have begun at gas stations around the state, which only has two major north-south highways, and authorities have opened shelters in inland areas.
  • The storm is expected to make landfall in Florida early Saturday, though it remains unclear where exactly the hurricane will hit the mainland.
  • On Barbuda, prime minister Gaston Browne said Irma had made 90% of the tiny island’s structures “literally rubble” and that half the population was homeless. On French-administered St Martin, local councilman Daniel Gibbs told a local radio station “95% of the island is destroyed”. French authorities have sent naval ships with supplies to the island.
  • In Haiti and the Dominican Republican, authorities closed all schools. Haitian president Jovenal Moïse urged people in rural areas to head to shelters and out of the mountains. “The hurricane is not a game,” he said in a television address. On the Bahamas, prime minister Hubert Minnis ordered people to leave six southern islands, the largest evacuation in the country’s history.
  • Already one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, Irma held sustained winds of 185mph for over 24 hours before it slowed to its current speed, making it the most enduring hurricane since the 1960s when satellite monitoring began. President Donald Trump has declared states of emergency in the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Florida.
  • “Do not ignore evacuation orders,” Scott told Floridians on Wednesday. “We can rebuild your home but we cannot rebuild your life.”

Updated

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