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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Environment
Naaman Zhou (now), Alan Yuhas, Matthew Weaver , Martin Farrer, and Martin Pengelly (earlier)

Caribbean in chaos as Irma brings floods to Florida Keys – as it happened

Closing summary

We are going to wrap up our live coverage of Irma for now. Thank you for reading. Here is an update on where we stand at 6.30am GMT (2.30am ET) on Tuesday morning:

  • Irma has been downgraded to a tropical depression, having moved through Georgia and into Alabama by early Tuesday morning. It is bringing sustained wind speeds of 35mph, down from 50mph earlier on Monday.
  • 10 people are dead across the United States, with six confirmed fatalities in Florida, three in Georgia and one in South Carolina as a result of the storm.
  • The death toll in the Caribbean hit 37 after the first death on Haiti was confirmed. Unicef have said donations and assistance from the international community will be needed to deal with the unfolding crisis. The UK has pledged £32m in aid while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, left on Monday to visit St Martin.
  • The scale of damage to the Florida Keys will become clearer by Tuesday 7am, when residents will be allowed back in. Communications were cut off for much of Monday, which restricted the flow of information. A report from the Key West city commissioner said food, water and fuel were running low, and there were unconfirmed reports of fatalities in the area, expected to be hard-hit after Irma made landfall there on Sunday.
  • Florida governor, Rick Scott, said he saw “devastation” on the Florida Keys, during a flyover. “I just hope everybody survived,” he said. “It’s horrible, what we saw.”
  • Record flash floods swept into Jacksonville out of the St Johns River, while an estimated 13 million people were left without power across the state in Florida.

Updated

While Irma’s centre is on track to leave Georgia by Monday midnight or Tuesday early morning, high winds are still forecast to continue, the state’s Emergency Management Agency has warned.

Irma’s sustained wind speed had earlier been downgraded to 35mph, but gusts could still reach 64mph.

Here’s just how much rainfall Irma has brought to the southern US since Friday 8am.

This includes, since Saturday 8am:

  • 11.17 inches in Jacksonville, Florida
  • 10.42 at the University of Florida
  • 10.12 at the St Marys River, Georgia
  • 6.05 at Edisto Island, South Carolina

Updated

Stormwatch

With Irma now downgraded to a tropical depression, let’s look at other storms in the region and across the world.

Hurricane Jose, which has lingered in the Atlantic without making landfall for days, continues to stall, according to the latest estimates.

In the Philippines, tropical depression Maring is expected to hit land on Tuesday morning local time with maximum winds of 60kmh.

Schools, courts and government offices have suspended work for the day due to heavy rain and gusts.

Finally, here’s the latest estimate of Irma’s path from the National Hurricane Center. It will spend much of Tuesday in Alabama.

Unicef calls for international donations

This latest story, from my colleague Helen Davidson, underlines the scale of destruction in the Caribbean, as estimated by international NGOs.

While much of the focus has been on European countries with overseas territories in the region (the UK, France and the Netherlands), Unicef have stressed the problem needs a much wider response from the international community.

In the words of Khin-Sandi Lwin, who is leading Unicef’s response in the Caribbean:

There is a general sense that [the British Virgin Islands] is British government territory and therefore the British will handle it.

We haven’t been able to raise the funds from other governments at the moment ... we need a much bigger international response to the funding that’s needed.

To date, the UK has earmarked £32m in aid for their territories, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is en route to visit the region. Meanwhile, Canada has also announced a $160,000 aid package.

Unicef are asking for an additional $US2.3m.

Updated

Irma downgraded to tropical depression

The National Hurricane Centre has downgraded Irma to a tropical depression, with maximum sustained wind speeds now at 35mph.

Forecasts predict the centre of Irma, now in Georgia, will move into Alabama by midnight on Monday, and then western Tennessee by 8pm Tuesday.

Meanwhile, 6.2 million accounts are still without power in Florida. The full breakdown from the Division of Emergency Management is below.

Update from Key West

The Key West city commissioner, Sam Kaufman, has provided a final update for today before residents are allowed back into the Florida Keys tomorrow.

  • Food and water are at “critically low” supply levels and the City of Key West is running low on fuel.
  • Two sections of roadway have been washed away.
  • 200 power poles have been downed and Keys Energy estimates it will take 7-10 days to restore power to all parts of Key West. In other Keys regions, this could take up to a month.
  • Some communications are expected to be restored by Tuesday.
  • The sheriff’s office has made “reference to fatalities”, but nothing has been confirmed.

More certain information will emerge from 7am Tuesday when residents will begin returning.

In Alabama, 25,000 homes are without power, mostly in eastern areas closer to Irma, which is currently over Georgia. However, Alabama Power say this is an improvement on 42,000 outages reported three hours ago.

In Florida, commercial flights from Tallahassee International Airport will resume on Tuesday morning.

US citizens will be evacuated from the Dutch island of St Maarten from 7.30am Tuesday local time, according to the state department. They warn that wait times will be long.

Irma in pictures

Here’s Irma’s trail of destruction as it moved south to north – from the Dutch island of St Maarten, the islands of the Florida Keys, and Jacksonville in Florida.

A man on St Maarten after Hurricane Irma
Phillipsburg town beach on the Dutch island of St Maarten. Photograph: Jose Jimenez/Getty Images
Damaged houses in the Florida Keys
Damaged houses in the Florida Keys. Photograph: Matt McClain/AP
Justin Hand kayaks through Jacksonville after record flooding from storm surges after Hurricane Irma
Justin Hand kayaks through Jacksonville after record flooding from storm surges after Hurricane Irma. Photograph: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Residents of the Florida Keys will be allowed back into their homes and businesses from 7am Tuesday.

Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada in Monroe County will be re-opened for those with proof of residence. For many, it will be a first opportunity to survey the damage, as communications in the area are still down.

Curfews are still in place across southern Florida as Irma moves north over Georgia.

There is a curfew from 7pm to 7am in:

  • Miami-Dade County
  • City of Miami
  • City of North Miami
  • Village of Key Biscayne, and others

There is a curfew from 4pm until further notice in:

  • City of Fort Lauderdale
  • City of Deerfield Beach
  • Town of Hillsboro Beach

Six dead in Florida

Six people have died in Florida as a result of Irma, according to the latest from AP.

This brings the US death toll to 10, across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to reports from a number of local authorities.

In Florida, Winter Park police spokesman Garvin McComie said a 51-year-old man, named as Brian Buwalda, was found electrocuted by a downed power line on Monday morning.

On Sunday evening, 50-year-old Heidi Zehner died after her SUV crashed into a guardrail on route 417 near Orlando, and on Sunday morning 53-year-old Joseph Ossman and 42-year-old Julie Bridges died after their vehicles collided head-on.

Three deaths have been reported in Georgia, and one in South Carolina.

Here’s how Irma moved across Florida over the last 60 hours:

The death toll in Georgia has risen to three, and a first death has been reported in South Carolina, according to local authorities.

In Georgia, a woman died after a tree fell on a vehicle in a private driveway, according to the Forsyth County Sherrif’s Office, who did not release her name.

In South Carolina, 57-year-old Charles Saxon died after being struck by a tree limb in Calhoun Falls, the Abbeville County Coroner, Ronnie Ashley, said.

Here’s more on the European response to Irma’s devastation in the Caribbean, after 400 survivors arrived in France and the Netherlands on Monday after a military evacuation.

From AFP:

Both the French and Dutch governments have come under criticism over delays in their responses to the crisis and in particular over how they handled outbreaks of looting on St Barthelemy and St Martin, an island with both French and Dutch sectors.

“They gave us phone numbers but they didn’t work. Only social media and solidarity worked,” said a mother picking up her daughter at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport.

“People were left to their own devices. They had to set up militias and take turns defending themselves (against looters).”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has just boarded a plane to visit the French islands of St Martin and St Barts.

Opposition politician Jean-Luc Melenchon had earlier slammed Macron for not doing enough, demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the French government’s response to the storm. The islands suffered much of the early force of Irma, with 9 people confirmed dead as of Friday, and 60% of St Martin declared uninhabitable.

The US National Weather Service says all communications are down in the Florida Keys. They’re advising that it will be some time before they can provide information about specific areas of the Keys, and whether or not people are safe.

They say they are receiving “numerous inquiries” but have no information to pass on. There is no timeline as yet for when communication will be restored.

Haiti’s civil protection agency has confirmed the country’s first death from Hurricane Irma.

Authorities said an elderly man had died in the town of Mirebalais while attempting to cross a rain-swollen river in the country’s central plateau region. Irma had passed along the north of the island on Thursday local time, sparing most of the country from the full force of the storm.

Hi everyone, this is Naaman Zhou taking over the live blog from Alan Yuhas. I’ll be covering events through the night or day, depending on where you are.

The latest from Irma

  • Irma battered northern Florida and moved into Georgia, slowing to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 50mph. Earlier on Monday gusts in excess of 60mph could be felt as far away as the metro Atlanta area, 200 miles inland.
  • Record flash floods swept into Jacksonville out of the St Johns River, forcing residents out of homes with what possessions they could carry on small boats or in their hands. Storm surges pushed the ocean into Charleston, South Carolina, and two storm-related deaths were reported in southern Georgia.
  • At least 6.5 million homes and businesses lost power in Florida, two-thirds of the state. More than 100,000 people waited out the storm in shelters, and many started to head home as teams cleared debris off roads.
  • Governor Rick Scott saw “devastation” on the Florida Keys, where Irma made landfall on Sunday. An unknown number of people remain trapped on the islands, and the national guard are trying to rescue people from the flooded and demolished neighborhoods. A White House official said it could take weeks to restore safe road access and utilities. “I just hope everybody survived,” Scott said. “It’s horrible, what we saw.’”
  • Scott urged residents to wait for the all-clear on roads, given dangerous downed power lines, trees, and contaminated floodwaters. Health officials advised boiling tap water, avoiding stagnant floodwaters and looking out for expired food . “Don’t put any more lives at risk,” Scott said. “Don’t get out.”
  • City and county governments planned to re-open officially on Tuesday, as did Miami and Fort Lauderdale’s international airports. Many seaports and marinas remain closed to civilian traffic, however, with sunken boats or their shattered remains still a hazards.
  • At least 36 people have been reported killed around the Caribbean since Irma tore through Barbuda, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, French St Martin, the Bahamas, Cuba and other islands.
  • The premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government, saying the situation was “critical” . French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday.
  • The US sent several naval vessels with hundreds of marines and aid packages to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and south Florida. Britain has sent 500 British troops and sent aside £32m in aid to its territories. France has sent almost 1,000 medical, military and police personnel to the region.
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The full extent of the damage on the Keys is trickling out thanks to reporters who stayed there, despite evacuation orders, or who’ve newly arrived with helicopters or rescue teams.

After over 30 hours churning over Florida’s islands, coastlines and interior, Irma’s eye has moved across state lines into Georgia, the National Hurricane Center reports.

Its winds have slowed to 50mph.

The tropical storm’s center is now about 10 miles east of Albany. The agency predicts that it will turn north-west early Tuesday morning, toward Alabama, at 17mph. The storm’s arms still extend over 400 miles, in all, with three to six inches predicted everywhere from North Carolina through Georgia, into Alabama, southern Tennessee and northern Mississippi.

Updated

From the ground of the Florida Keys, National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss has been documenting the damage done to the islands.

But the changes wrought by Irma are visible from space; meteorologist Dakota Smith illustrates with a graphic from satellite imagery.

Waters are receding in Jacksonville, but the flash floods exceeded anything the city was expecting. The city ordered people to either evacuate areas near the St Johns river or to head for the upper storeys of homes and businesses.

Georgia officials have reported a second death related to Irma, the AP reports. The AP has also learned more details related to the first reported death.

Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Catherine Howden said the death was confirmed Monday in Sandy Springs, north of Atlanta. She had no further details.

The storm is also being blamed for the death of a 62-year-old man in rural southwest Georgia. Worth County sheriff’s spokeswoman Kannetha Clem said the man use a ladder to climb onto a shed Monday morning as sustained winds in the county exceeded 40 mph (65 kph).

Clem says the man’s wife called 911 saying he suffered a heart attack, and first responders found his body lodged between two beams on the shed’s roof with debris on top of him.

The dead man’s name was not immediately released.

As of 5pm local time, more than 6.7 million homes and businesses have lost power in Florida, the state’s emegency management agency reports.

That total is roughly two-thirds of the entire state. With an additional 800,000 homes and businesses reported to have lost power by providers in Georgia, a huge section of the south-eastern US has gone dark.

More images are meanwhile coming in from the Florida Keys, where the damage resembles the gutted, blown out towns of other islands across the Caribbean.

Some of the small Caribbean islands smashed by Irma are in a state of chaos and rising panic, Jo Walters reports, after interviews with residents of the British territories.

“It’s absolutely horrific,” said Sarah Thompson, a 38-year-old lawyer and resident of Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

“The island is not fit to live on. Planes and boats are needed to get people off. There was some limited evacuation yesterday, prioritizing those who are injured and most vulnerable, but many are still trying to find a way off the island,” she added.

“I’m hearing rumors of deaths, and there are people who cannot be accounted for. Many roads are totally blocked and people cannot get out of their houses.”

Five people are understood to have died in the BVI so far, but the death toll is expected to rise as personnel reach areas isolated by flooding and debris.

Communications were down across much of the BVI from Wednesday and there is now some patchy phone and internet function. The only power is from generators, with people running low on fuel to run them, Thompson said.

Thompson did not hear from her husband, Christian, until Saturday, when she learned he was safe. Their home is wrecked.

“There is debris all over the island. There seems to be no information and people are running around like headless chickens. It looks like the government building in Tortola has been totalled, but there has to be some more coordination. People on the ground are starting to panic, and I can hear it in my husband’s voice,” said Thompson.

An aerial view showing damage caused by Hurricane Irma Tortola.
An aerial view showing damage caused by Hurricane Irma Tortola. Photograph: Cpl Timothy Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Charleston is awash with storm surge and rain, as seawater rushes over embankments into the city.

After doing their damage to homes, cars, boats and lives, the waters will quickly retreat to the sea, as they’re already doing to the south.

Tropical storm Irma has killed one person in Georgia, an emergency management official has confirmed to the AP.

The death was in rural Worth County, in south-west Georgia, in the path of the storm. It was confirmed as a storm related death by Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Catherine Howden. She gave no details.

Along the coast, where storm surges started flooding towns and cities, Savanna had been ordered to evacuate for the second time in less than a year. Atlanta, although more than 200 miles inland, is under a tropical storm warning.

Some people stayed behind in the coastal regions, including Holland Zellers, who also spoke with the AP. He said the water in the street was “knee-to-waist deep”.

Shawn Gillen, Tybee Island’s city manager, said waters appeared to be receding quickly but the flooding was extensive on the island of more than 3,000 residents.

“There’s a lot of homes that have water in the them right now,” Gillen said.

More than 800,000 homes and businesses in south Georgia have lost power, utility providers have said. More than 70% of Miami still lacks power, and 6.5 million homes and businesses have lost power all around Florida, roughly two-thirds of the state.

Updated

Jacksonville and Charleston are suffering intense, and in some cases historic flooding, with the rain and winds especially buffeting the South Carolina city.

In Jacksonville, residents are trying to desperately evacuate homes from thigh-high floodwaters, with boats, coolers, life vests and plastic bins to rescue anything they can.

Pedestrians try to walk as waves crash in Charleston.
Pedestrians try to walk as waves crash in Charleston. Photograph: Mic Smith/AP
Two people pass a man in a canoe as they wade through the flooded streets of the San Marco historic district of Jacksonville.
Two people pass a man in a canoe as they wade through the flooded streets of the San Marco historic district of Jacksonville. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Pedestrians walk by a flooded car in Charleston.
Pedestrians walk by a flooded car in Charleston. Photograph: Mic Smith/AP
Tommy Nevitt carries Miranda Abbott through floodwater in Jacksonville.
Tommy Nevitt carries Miranda Abbott through floodwater in Jacksonville. Photograph: Dede Smith/AP

A Florida official says that it’s impossible to know right now how much damage Irma has caused.

“It’s going to cost billions upon billions upon billions of dollars,” he says. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, has assured Florida officials that the agency has sufficient funding for a few more months.

But the official says it’s clear the agency needs more long-term funds to cope with damage from Harvey and Irma. “We’re still in the middle of hurricane season.”

Scott: devastation on the Keys

Scott also breathes a sigh of relief that along the western coast, where Irma made landfall near Naples, “I didn’t see the damage that we thought we would see.”

Homes were “messed up”, boats tossed ashore and roofs torn off, Scott says, but the storm surge was not as severe as feared, and people mostly heeded evacuation orders.

Far worse were the Florida Keys. Scott traveled to the naval air station on Key West earlier today, and saw boats carried into homes, nearly every trailer park overturned, and flood damage everywhere.

“The water is not working, the sewer is not working, and there’s no electricity. so it’s very tough.”

The national guard has managed to take US-1, the only road to the Keys, all the way through them, but Scott says it’s not yet entirely safe. “There’s clearly some bridge damage, some road damage.”

“My heart goes out to the people on the Keys. I mean, it’s devastation. I just hope everybody survived. It’s horrible, what we saw.”

Finally, the governor pleads for patience. “We’ve got to get our first responders to the Keys, we’ve got to get the water going again, we’ve got to get the power going again. It’s going to take a lot of time,” Scott says.

“Especially for the Keys, it’s going to be a long road.”

Key West: aerial footage shows Irma’s damage – video

Updated

Governor: historic flooding in Jacksonville

Florida governor Rick Scott is giving a briefing, not long after he traveled with rescue teams to the Florida Keys, which are still essentially cut off from the mainland.

Scott takes stock of Irma’s damage. South-west Florida saw storm surges ranging from four to eight feet, and 10 feet in Monroe County, on the south-west tip and including the Keys. There was approximately four feet of surge in Miami-Dade, and three to six feet in the Big Bend area.

The storm is still pummeling Jacksonville and Orlando. In the latter, there’s flooding from waterway surges and more than a foot of torrential rains. In Jacksonville, there is “record and historical flooding along the St Johns river”, he says.

“The biggest threat as Irma leaves Florida is going to be river flooding.”

Scott’s relieved to say that the threat of tornadoes has diminished but says that if people don’t have to go out on the roads, “don’t get out.”

“We’ve got downed power lines all across the state, we’ve got debris all across the state,” he says. “Our goal again is don’t put anymore lives at risk. Don’t put any more lives at risk because of downed power lines, debris, and impassable roads.”

Ed Pilkington is in Everglades City, south of Naples, where floods are still severe.

I’ve battled my way down the west coast of Florida through semi-flooded roads to Everglades City, a small crab fishing town of about 2,000.

It was completely awash with water when the storm surge occurred after Irma past through here on Sunday. You can see the water marks up to about five feet on the walls of houses

The City Hall is remarkably grand for a tiny community, but then it does pride itself as being “stone crab capital if the world”. Now it’s an island, encircled by a lapping pool.

Lynn Stokes gave me a ride the last stretch of the way in a giant truck as the roads were too deep in water. She runs an airport service for tourists wanting to see the Everglades. It has a two-inch carpet of mud inside it, deposited after the waters came and receded.

She said she was struck that the last time the town had been completely flooded like this was on exactly the same day 60 years ago – 10 September 1957 – with Hurricane Donna.

And how’s she feeling? “Oh man this is a mess. Oh my god there’s a lot to clean.”

White House: Keys access and power could take weeks

Federal rescue crews are extremely cocnerned about flooding in Jacksonville and the Florida Keys, homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert has told reporters at the White House.

Bossert also says it could take weeks to bring power back to all of Florida, calling the effort “the largest mobilization of line restoration workers” in US history. Workers from every company in the country, and from Canada, are part of the restoration plan of plants, subplants, poles and lines.

The Florida Keys, he says, “are going to take a while”. He estimates that the Keys will not be “fit for re-entry for regular citizens for weeks”.

He admits he could be wrong, and local officials may let people return sooner, but stresses that officials have to asses miles of bridges for structural damage. He hopes most people heeded warnings to get off the islands, but says he would not be surprised if people were found dead on the archipelago.

“We’re going to get back down there as soon as we humanly can.”

Updated

Irma so far

  • Irma battered northern Florida on a course toward Georgia, but slowed to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 65mph. Gusts in excess of 60mph could be felt as far away as the metro Atlanta area.
  • A flash flood warning was issued for Jacksonvillille, where record flooding was recorded on the St Johns River. Video showed the water spilling over harbor walls and entering homes and offices. Police urged residents to shelter in higher floors and to hang a white blanket or T-shirt outside a window if they’re in need of rescue.
  • At least 6.5 million homes and businesses lost power in Florida, nearly two-thirds of the state. More than 100,000 people waited out the storm in shelters. Large sections of Everglades City remain flooded, and authorities across south Flrodia urged residents to wait for the all-clear on roads and evacuation zones, given dangerous downed power lines, trees, and contaminated floodwaters.
  • City and county governments planned to re-open officially on Tuesday, though cleanup crews and inspectors were at work since dawn on Monday. For people without power, the state health department advised boiling tap water, avoiding floodwaters and tossing food that might quickly go bad.
  • The Florida Keys remain cut off except by air, with police blocking the only road to the islands until its safety could be assured. An unknown number of people remain trapped on the islands, despite evacuation orders. Military rescue efforts have begun. Aerial footage showed firetrucks swamped above their tires, boats tossed into buildings, and flooded neighborhoods.
  • At least 27 people have been confirmed killed in storm-related deaths around the Caribbean since Irma began its brutal journey from a category five monster and tore through Barbuda, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, French St Martin, the Bahamas and other islands. The Cuban government reported a tentative figure of 10 people killed, mostly in Havana’s coastal neighborhoods.
  • The premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government, saying the situation was “critical” . French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday.
  • The US sent several naval vessels with hundreds of marines and aid packages to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and south Florida. Britain has sent 500 British troops and sent aside £32m in aid to its territories. France has sent almost 1,000 medical, military and police personnel to the region.
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Updated

Ed Pilkington is in Everglades City, where the recovery will be slower and more difficult than in the south-eastern cities that were lucky enough to avoid the brunt of Irma’s floods.

But the state’s department of health is trying to warn residents across the peninsula that they need to be extremely careful. Some of their guidance:

  • Don’t eat food contaminated by floodwater. Use only boiled/bottled water. Discard frigerated/frozen food after 4hr power outage
  • People & pets coming into contact with floodwaters should thoroughly wash & rinse any exposed body parts w/soap & disinfected water
  • Cans of food should not be eaten if there is a bulging or opening on can or screw caps, soda bottle tops or twist-caps.
  • If heat exhaustion symptoms become more severe or last longer than one hour, seek medical attention immediately.
  • During Irma cleanup, drain standing water to preventing mosquito-borne Illness. Storms can lead to an increase in mosquitoes.

Updated

South eastern Florida has started its recovery, urging people to stay off the roads if possible while cleanup crews get to work.

South western Florida still has floodwaters in some areas, for instance Everglades City, south of Naples. Ed Pilkington is there for the Guardian, trying to see the extent of the storm’s damage and whether anyone stayed behind.

The Fort Lauderdale airport will reopen at 4am Tuesday, the airport said in a statement, and city governments from Tampa to Miami are making similar plans – even as their crews are already at work doing cleanup and search and rescue.

For residents and business owners of south Florida, the work has also begun to take down the plywood, metal storm shutters and plastic wrap.

“Miami Beach didn’t dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannon,” the city’s mayor Philip Levine has told CNN.

“We got hurricane three force winds but thank god. The damage we received – there’s trees all over the ground, there’s power lines down, there’s gas leaks. But we’ve had teams on the ground since the crack of down and they have been there making sure we can clean up the city as fast as possible. We want the residents to return asap.”

The west coast also avoided the cataclysmic 10-15ft storm surges that threatened, and that seem to have hit the Keys. Ed Pilkington is currently en route to one of the cities where storm surges were likely most serious on the mainland.

Naples, where Irma’s eye crossed onto land, feared intense surges of five to eight feet. The Naples Daily News’ Joseph Cranney is among the reporters surveying the damage.

The Florida Keys have been cut off from the mainland for over 24 hours now, and suffered the brunt of Irma’s category four force for much of Saturday.

The police have closed the only road access to the islands, for fear of how safe its bridges are, and the first helicopter footage of the Keys shows massive flooding all around them. The coast guard has advised people not to even attempt boating to the islands, because of dangerous debris. The military is attempting search and rescue operations for the unknown number of people who are stranded there.

National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss was on one of those people, and has re-established a connection to the internet. He’s tweeted harrowing footage of the storm’s arrival and what’s left in its wake.

In Everglades City, just north of Monroe County – on the southern Gulf coast and an evacuation zone – MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff films severe flooding that has yet to recede.

Power remains out for some 6.5 million homes and businesses around the state, and authorities are urging people to stay off the roads or at least to take care with outed intersections.Downed

As the sun burns through the clouds aroud south Florida, photographers and residents take stock of Irma’s passage.

A couple leave their flooded home the morning after Hurricane Irma swept through the area on September 11, 2017 in Fort Myers, Florida.
A couple leave their flooded home the morning after Hurricane Irma swept through the area on September 11, 2017 in Fort Myers, Florida. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A boat is beached after the passage of Hurricane Irma at Grove Harbour in Coconut Grove.
A boat is beached after the passage of Hurricane Irma at Grove Harbour in Coconut Grove. Photograph: Jose Romero/AFP/Getty Images
Beached boats at the Watson Island marina.
Beached boats at the Watson Island marina. Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/EPA
A crocodile is seen at the Dinner Key marina.
A crocodile is seen at the Dinner Key marina. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The National Weather Service is warning that flash floods are likely and extremely dangerous in the Jacksonville area, with the St Johns river and other waterways cresting at record levels.

At about 11am, the North Fork Black Creek broke a 1919 all-time record at 25.7ft. The waters are still rising.

Irma is battering northern Florida on its course toward Georgia, with sustained winds of 65mph. The storm is about 70 miles east of Tallahassee.

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Jacksonville’s sheriff’s office has ordered people along the St Johns River to “Get out NOW” from evacuation zones, as tropical depression Irma batters the city.

The department warns that the river is at historic flood levels, with high tide at 2pm. They had earlier told people who needed help to put a white flag or T-shirt somewhere visible on their house, as a plea for assistance.

Irma by the numbers, as of about noon Monday.

Hours of sustained 185mph winds in the Caribbean: 37 (a record)

Sustained winds at landfall on the Florida Keys: 130mph

Strongest reported gust on the US mainland (Naples): 142mph

Estimated number of people without power around Florida: as many as 6.5 million.

Estimated number of people in shelters: 160,000

Estimated number of regional flights canceled in the last week: more than 12,500

Estimated number of people told to evacuate from coastal swaths of Florida: 6.5 million (about a third of the state’s population).

Number of people confirmed killed in circumstances related to the storm: 27

Estimated percent of buildings on Barbuda made “uninhabitable”: 90%

On French St Martin: 60%

Number of British soldiers sent to the Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos: 500

Size of relief fund from the British government: £32m

Number of French gendarmes, police, security, and medical personnel sent to St Martin and St Barthélemy: 1,115

Tonnage of medical supplies and food sent by France: 2.2 and 85

Number of US marines sent to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico: 950

Number of Florida national guard troops mobilized: 7,000

Estimated cost of 1992’s hurricane Andrew: $27bn

Of 2005’s hurricane Katrina: $108bn

Of 2017’s hurricane Harvey: $70-108bn

Size of US relief package approved on Friday for Texas: $15bn

Cost estimates of hurricane Irma: $15-172bn

Current reserve of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund: $17bn

Open roads to the Florida Keys on Saturday: 1

On Monday: 0

Time elapsed between category four storms making landfall in US states: 16 days

(Sources: the Guardian, Florida Division of Emergency Management, AP, Governor Rick Scott, Barbuda prime minister Gaston Browne, AP, Gov.uk, CNN, meteorologists Eric Black and Philip Klotzbach, the New York Times, the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, CoreLogic, National Weather Service, Fema)

Updated

In eastern Florida, residents are tentatively stepping outide to inspect the damage.

Updated

A local NBC news team has the first helicopter footage of the Florida Keys, where hurricane Irma first made landfall in Florida.

The islands are functionally cut off from the outside world: police are keeping people off of US-1, the only road to the mainland, until they can ensure its bridges are safe. The coast guard has ordered people to stay away even with boats, because debris from smashed boats, homes, and vehicles is too dangerous.

“Some homes are completely obliterated,” a reporter says. Boats look flung into docks and homes, structures damaged, and a firetruck swamped above its tires, a full 25 hours after the landfall. The Keys are only accessible by air, and it’s difficult to tell where the ocean, floods, and sunken roads begin and end.

Military rescues will begin later today. It’s not known how many people stayed on the Keys despite mandatory evacuation orders.

Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.10.12 AM
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.10.12 AM Photograph: NBC6

Miami mayor Tomas Regalado is giving a press conference, saying that 72% of the city has lost power .

The priority now that teh winds died down, he says, is to clear the roads.

“We had localized flooding but I think for the most part that flooding has receded,” the city manager says.

The emergency manager then takes the podium, saying that rescue teams have been working since late last night, when the winds finally died down to safe levels. “Our main mission is to make sure that our critical infrastructure is protected,” he says. Teams are starting to head out to help people, clear the roads, and inspect endangered water and power lines.

There are no reported deaths so far in Miami, a law enforcement official says. He urges people to stay away from power lines and the debris near them. “We’re proud of the more than half million citizens of Miami,” he says. Police have heard of isolated looting, he says.

Debris litters a street after the passage of Hurricane Irma on September 11, 2017, in Miami.
Debris litters a street after the passage of Hurricane Irma on September 11, 2017, in Miami. Photograph: Michele Eve Sandberg/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Trump: 'these are storms of catastrophic severity'

Donald Trump has said his thoughts are with the survivors and families of the victims of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey.

In a speech at the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he said:

These are storms of catastrophic severity and we are marshalling the full full resources of the federal government to help our fellow Americans in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee and all of those wonderful places and states in harm’s way.

When Americans are in in need, Americans pull together. And we our one country. And when we face hardship we emerge, closer, stronger and more determined than ever.

U.S. President Trump speaks during ceremonies in honor of the victims of the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon in Washington
U.S. President Trump speaks during ceremonies in honor of the victims of the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon in Washington
 Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

What we know so far

  • Irma is continuing to lash Florida as it moves into the north of the state, but it is losing strength and has been downgraded to a tropical storm, with sustained windspeeds of 70mph.
  • Around six million homes (62%) are without power in Florida and scores of people have been rescued. More than 160,000 people are thought to be waiting out the storm in shelters across the state.
  • A flash flood warning has been issued for Jacksonville on the north-east Florida coast where record flooding was recorded on the St Johns River. Video showed the water overlapping harbour walls and entering homes and offices. Residents have been urged to shelter in higher floors.
  • Hurricane Jose, which had threatened to batter the Caribbean islands hit by Irma, has weakened to a category 2 storm is set to linger away from land in the coming days. According to the latest update from the US National Hurricane Centre Jose now has sustained wind speeds of 105mph.
  • At least 10 people were killed when Irma tore through Cuba over the weekend. Among the victims were two passengers of a bus in Santiago de Cuba when part of a fourth-floor balcony fell on the bu. Three of those killed died in their homes after ignoring evacuation orders, the authorities said.
  • A police officer and prisoner officer were killed in a car crash in southern Florida thought to have been caused by the hurricane. Miami International Airport will remain closed until at least Tuesday. Three construction cranes have crashed to the ground in southern Florida.
  • In the Caribbean, the premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government to get the territories back on their feet after being devastated by Irma last week. He said the situation was “critical” and called for a “comprehensive package” to rebuild the islands. Entrepreneur and British Virgin Island resident, Richard Branson, called for a “disaster recovery Marshall plan”.
  • The clean-up operation is continuing in the Caribbean where it is thought 38 people have been killed.
  • French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said the death toll on the Dutch part of St. Martin had doubled to four, and that 70% of homes had been damaged or destroyed.
  • UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has insisted Britain is doing all it can to help after facing fresh criticism from Britons stranded in the Caribbean. Johnson said 700 British troops were in the region, with UK police also arriving. The government has already set aside £32m in aid and will match public donations to the Red Cross appeal.

Updated

New videos shows the scale of the flooding in Jacksonville, north-east Florida, where a flash flood warning remains in place.

State media has named all 10 victims of the hurricane in Cuba.

They were killed in the states of territories of Havana, Matanzas, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila, according to a statement from Civil Defense authorities, reprinted in Cuba Debate.

Among those killed were brother and sister in their 50s who found dead in their home in Guisa after part of the property’s roof collapsed.

One of the victims in Havana was killed when he fell onto a live power line, and two people were killed in Santiago de Cuba when part of a fourth-floor balcony fell on the bus they were travelling in.

Three of those killed died in their homes after ignoring evacuation orders, the authorities said.

Updated

Reuters has a bit more on the rising death toll across the region.

At least 10 people were killed after Hurricane Irma tore through Cuba over the weekend, authorities said in a statement on Monday, bringing the death toll in the Caribbean from the ferocious storm to 38.

A statement from civil defence authorities said the victims perished due to various causes such as accidents, collapsed buildings and not heeding orders to evacuate in the four provinces of Havana, Matanzas, Sancti spiritus and Ciego de Avila, where the storm hit hard.

Cubans wade through a flooded street in Havana
Cubans wade through a flooded street in Havana Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

The number of homes currently without power in Florida has increased to 6.2m, according to the latest update from the Florida State Emergency Response Team. That represents 62% of the state, it said.

The worst hit areas are Miami Dade county where 809,580 homes are without power (down from 1.1m earlier); neighbouring Broward county to the north where 638,480 homes currently don’t have power; and Palm Beach, the next county up, where the figure is 526,310.

Emergency phone lines are down in Glades county, south Florida where a flood watch will remain in place until 8pm on Monday.

Miami-Dade police have footage of uprooted trees and downed traffic lights at a junction in Miami.

10 killed in Cuba

The Cuban government says 10 people have been killed by Hurricane Irma, according to a snap on Reuters.

Updated

Highway patrol police in Orlando have urged sightseers to stay at home. They stress that roads remain dangerous because of fallen power lines.

Rising waters have been flooding homes and offices and topping the harbour in Jacksonville, north-east Florida where a flood alert is still in force.

Much better news on the Hurricane Jose front. It is weakening and forecasters from the Antigua Met Service now reckon it won’t hit land for up to five days.

According to the latest update from the US National Hurricane Centre Jose now has sustained wind speeds of 105mp, which means it has weakened from a category 3 to a category 2 storm.

Irma now a tropical storm

As it predicted the National Hurricane Center has downgraded Irma to a tropical storm, but it is still producing hurricane force gusts. Irma’s sustained wind speeds are now 70mph (down from 185mph battering the Caribbean last week).

The NHC is still waring of life-threatening storm surges.

A Storm Surge Warning is in effect for: South Santee River southward to the Flagler/Volusia County line; Cape Sable northward to the Ochlockonee River and Tampa Bay.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for: Bonita Beach to the Okaloosa/Walton County Line, Jupiter Inlet to the South Santee River and Lake Okeechobee.

Labour has urged the prime minister or foreign secretary to follow Emmanuel Macron in visiting the Caribbean islands worst hit by Irma. Kate Osamor, shadow secretary of international development, said:

“Boris Johnson was clear on Sunday that this is a national disaster being treated as though in Inverness, Dover or St. Ives. Donald Trump is headed to Florida, and now Emmanuel Macron will visit St Martin tomorrow.

“But with the UK response to Irma drawing wide criticism, Theresa May is still to announce whether she or Boris Johnson will visit those most affected, look them in the eye and put their concerns at the centre of her government’s response plan.

“The British people in the Overseas Territories deserve to see first-hand that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are doing everything they can to get a grip on this national disaster.”

A UK aid flight has arrived in Barbados.

Updated

Irma has toppled cranes, uprooted trees, torn down power lines and ripped cladding off buildings. Here’s a selection of images of damage captured by journalists in the area.

A man looks at an uprooted tree pictured after the full effects of Hurricane Irma hit in Miami, Florida
A man looks at an uprooted tree pictured after the full effects of Hurricane Irma hit in Miami, Florida Photograph: Cristobal Herrera/EPA

Flash flood warning for Jacksonville

A flash flood warning has been issued for Jacksonville on the north-east Florida coast. Record flooding was recorded on the St Johns River in Jacksonsville earlier today.

“This is particularly dangerous situation,” the National Weather Service warned. It urged residents to seek shelter on the second floor of buildings, or higher or move to higher ground.

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma is continuing to lash Florida as it moves north of Tampa, but it is losing strength and is set to be downgraded to a tropical storm later today. It was a category four storm when it first made landfall in the Florida Keys, but is now a category one hurricane with sustained windspeeds of 75mph and is likely to classed as tropical storm later on Monday, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
  • More 5.7 homes (58%) are without power in Florida and scores of people have been rescued. More than 160,000 people are thought to be waiting out the storm in shelters across the state.
  • A police officer and prisoner officer were killed in a car crash in southern Florida thought to have been caused by the hurricane. Miami international airport will remain closed until at least Tuesday. Three construction cranes have crashed to the ground in southern Florida.
  • Record flooding has been recorded in Jacksonville as storm surges remain the main danger. The critical point could come at high tide, the NHC said, and bring up to 6ft of water flooding inland in the Tampa area.
  • Forecasters say they expect Irma’s centre to stay inland over Florida and then move into Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. It will weaken into a tropical storm over far northern Florida or southern Georgia on Monday as it speeds up its forward motion.
  • In the Caribbean, the premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government to get the territories back on their feet after being devastated by Irma last week. He said the situation was “critical” and called for a “comprehensive package” to rebuild the islands. Entrepreneur and British Virgin Island resident Richard Branson called for a “disaster recovery Marshall plan”.
  • The clean-up operation is continuing in the Caribbean where it is thought 28 people have been killed.
  • French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said the death toll on the Dutch part of the island, St Maarten, had doubled to four, and that 70% of homes had been damaged or destroyed.
  • The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has insisted Britain is doing all it can to help after facing fresh criticism from Britons stranded in the Caribbean. Johnson said 700 British troops were in the region, with UK police also arriving. The government has already set aside £32m in aid and will match public donations to the Red Cross appeal.

Updated

Scores of people have been rescued, according to AP.

In Polk County east of Tampa, winds knocked a utility pole and lines on to a sheriff’s cruiser late Sunday, illustrating the dangerous conditions for rescuers.

A deputy and a paramedic were trapped for two hours until a crew could free them; both were unhurt.

And more than 120 homes were being evacuated early Monday in Orange County, just outside the city of Orlando, as floodwaters started to pour in.

The fire department and the National Guard are going door-to-door and using boats to ferry families to safety, county officials said. A few miles away, 30 others had to be evacuated when a 60ft sinkhole opened up under an apartment building. No injuries were reported in either case.

Meanwhile, more than 160,000 people waited in shelters across Florida.

Updated

5.8m Florida homes without power

The number of homes currently without power in Florida has shot up to 5.78m, according to the latest update from the Florida State Emergency Response Team. That represents 58% of the state, it said.

The worst hit areas are Miami Dade county where 815,650 homes are without power (down from 1.1m earlier) and neighbouring Broward county where 643,000 homes currently don’t have power.

Updated

Branson calls for 'Marshall plan for Caribbean'

Entrepreneur and British Virgin Island resident Richard Branson has called for a “disaster recovery Marshall plan” for the Caribbean – a reference to the multibillion-dollar programme agreed by the US to help Europe recover from the devastation of the second world war.

In a blogpost he writes:

The UK government will have a massive role to play in the recovery of its territories affected by Irma – both through short-term aid and long-term infrastructure spending. The region needs a “disaster recovery Marshall plan” for the BVI and other territories that will aid in recovery, sustainable reconstruction and long-term revitalisation of the local economy. This will have to include building resilience against what is likely to be a higher intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, as the effects of climate change continue to grow.

Branson said tens of thousands of people had lost their homes and livelihoods amid “worrying reports of civil unrest spreading”.

He added: “We must get more help to the islands to rebuild homes and infrastructure and restore power, clean water and food supplies.”

Updated

Record flooding has been recorded in Jacksonville on the north-east coast of Florida.

Flooding of 4.5ft (1.37m) on the Johns River beat the previous record set in 1964 during Hurricane Dora.

Record flooding recorded in Jacksonville
recordflooding Photograph: National Weather Service

Thank Cuba ...

Had the center of Irma hit Florida 20 to 30 miles (32-50 kilometers) to the east its impact would have been much worse, meteorologists have told AP.

Florida can thank Cuba, where it did hit as a Category 5 storm, said Maue and Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground.

Irma would probably have hit Florida as a Category 5 hurricane if it had missed Cuba, Masters said.

The storm briefly trekked over Cuba’s low populated coast Friday evening through Saturday afternoon. That weakened Irma enough that when upper level winds from the west eroded some of the storm’s top and also blew in dry air, it had the combined of effect of making Irma more ragged, Masters said. It was at that point, he said, that Irma’s southwest eyewall sort of came apart, no longer a perfect circle on satellite imagery.

Slightly weakened from Cuba, the storm got caught up in competing weather systems a little longer, delaying its northward right turn into Florida. And that delay pushed the track further west, making it more of a threat to Florida’s west coast than its east.

Meanwhile, Cuba has sent hundreds heath workers doctors to several other Caribbean island hit by Irma, the Independent reports.

More than 750 health workers have arrived in Antigua, Barbuda, Saint Kitts, Nevis, Saint Lucia, the Bahamas, Dominica and Haiti.

They have been told to follow the guidelines of the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap) and to contribute to aiding the recovery of regions that have been hit by the hurricane.

“The collaboration of the Central Medical Cooperation Unit, together with the Minsap Management Center, and our embassies, have maintained the communication to assess the damages and assess what help our own collaborators could provide,” Regla Angulo Pardo, the director of the Central Unit of Medial Cooperation in Cuba, told Granma.

What we know so far

  • Hurricane Irma is continuing to lash Florida as it moves north of Tampa, but is losing strength and is set to be downgraded to a tropical storm later today. It was a category four storm when it first made landfall in the Florida Keys, but is now a category one hurricane with sustained windspeeds of 75mph and is likely to classed as tropical storm later on Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center
  • The most immediate threat from the storm is the possibility of storm surges. The critical point could come at high tide, the NHC said, and bring up to 15ft (4.5m) of water flooding inland in the Tampa area. High tide is expected at St Petersburg at 5.30am.
  • Forecasters say they expect Irma’s centre to stay inland over Florida and then move into Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. It will weaken into a tropical storm over far northern Florida or southern Georgia on Monday as it speeds up its forward motion.
  • More 4.2 millions homes are without power in Florida. A police officer and prisoner officer were killed in a car crash in southern Florida thought to have been caused by the hurricane. Miami International Airport will remain closed until at least Tuesday. Three construction cranes have crashed to the ground in southern Florida.
  • In the Caribbean, the premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government to get the territories back on their feet after being devastated by Irma last week. He said the situation was “critical” and called for a “comprehensive package” to rebuild the islands.
  • The clean-up operation is continuing in the Caribbean where it is thought 28 people have been killed.
  • French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said the death toll on the Dutch part of St. Martin had doubled to four, and that 70% of homes had been damaged or destroyed.
  • UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has insisted Britain is doing all it can to help after facing fresh criticism from Britons stranded in the Caribbean. Johnson said 700 British troops were in the region, with UK police also arriving. The government has already set aside £32m in aid and will match public donations to the Red Cross appeal.

Updated

“Swamped”, “Slammed” and “Ripped”, in “Watery Hell” a sample of US newspaper front pages in Florida and beyond.

Irma changing to a tropical storm

Irma has weakened to hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 75 mph and is set to become a tropical storm later on Monday, according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center.

It is currently centred 60 miles north of Tampa, on the west coast of Florida. Here are other main points:

  • A Hurricane warning for Florida west has been changed to a tropical storm warning.
  • Tropical storm warnings and storm surge warngins have been lifted for the Florida Keys and the Northwestern Bahamas.
  • Storm surge and hurricane warnings remains in place for many parts of Florida including Tampa Bay. A Storm surge warning means there is a “danger of life-threatening inundation”, from rising water moving inland from the coast.
  • Irma is moving north-northwest at 18mph towards the eastern Florida Panhandle into southern Georgia this afternoon, and move through southwestern Georgia and eastern Alabama tonight and Tuesday.
  • Additional weakening is forecast. Irma is expected to weaken to a tropical storm this morning and to a tropical depression by Tuesday afternoon.
  • Tornadoes are possible across northeast Florida and southeast portions of Georgia and South Carolina through tonight.

Updated

Some better news ... Hurricane Jose, the next Atlantic weather system behind Irma, has weakened to a category 2 storm and is lingering over the western Atlantic.

According to the latest update from the US National Hurricane Centre Jose now has sustained wind speeds of 105mp, which means it has weakened from a category 3 to a category 2 storm.

Jose is currently 255 miles north east of the Turks and Caicos islands.

The NHC said:

Jose is moving toward the north-northwest near 10 mph (17 km/h), and a turn toward the northeast is expected by tonight, with a reduction in forward speed. Jose is then expected to move slowly toward the east and southeast Tuesday into Wednesday. Maximum sustained winds are near 105 mph (165 km/h) with higher gusts. Steady weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours.

Police in Miami are urging people to remain in their homes until the roads are cleared of fallen power lines.

As a reminder of the dangers, Miami Dade police posted video of a flash fire in a wooded area after a line came down in Kendall, Dade county.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington describes seeing almost horizontal rain in 100mph winds in Naples to ABC News.

A third construction site crane has come down in South Florida, the Miami Herald reports.

The first to go was a crane at an apartment building in downtown Miami around 10.30am on Sunday.

Hours later, the winds brought down a second crane at a condo tower in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, roughly two miles north. A video posted on Twitter showed its boom dangling above the unfinished tower. Then, later in the afternoon, the flailing arm of a crane at an oceanfront Fort Lauderdale condo brought the number of accidents to three.

Johnson: UK doing all it can

Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson Photograph: Valda Kalnina/EPA

Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, has rejected claims that the UK government has abandoned British citizens stranded by the hurricane.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he said: “I am confident that we are doing everything we possibly can to help British nationals, but you must understand there half a million of them affected.”

The programme interviewed Amy Brown, a mother of two who stranded in a resort on the Franco-Dutch island of St Martin. She said: “Every single government has responded but there’s been absolutely nothing at all from our government.”

She spoke of fears for her safety after seeing video footage of looters with machetes on the island. “We’re just sitting here feeling totally abandoned,” she said.

Speaking from Caversham in Berkshire her father, Geoffrey Scott Baker, said: “The British response has been absolutely pitiful. It is just sheer incompetence, a callous disregard for our British citizens.”

Responding to the family’s plight, Johnson said, it was the responsibility of France and the Netherlands to evacuate tourists from St Martin.

He said: “This is the biggest consular crisis that we have faced. In St Martin in particular it is important for listeners to understand that this is controlled by the Dutch and the French. They have been evacuating people, but in priority according to their medical need.

“Some British nationals have been evacuated from St Martin. We are in constant touch with the Dutch and the French who are doing it. They don’t want more people coming on to the island which is a disaster zone. It is up to them to get them off.”

Responding to general criticism that the UK government has been slow to respond, Johnson said: “I noticed those criticism. I thought they were completely unjustified. We have been able to get 700 troops into the region, including 125 now onto the British Virgin Islands. There are now more than 50 UK police arriving in the area.”

Asked if the hurricane had caught the UK government unprepared, he said:

“We were there as soon as the crisis broke. It doesn’t make any sense when a Hurricane is impending to send in heavy aircraft or ships that are not going to be capable themselves of withstanding the storm. In fact the French had to ask us for assistance later on because we had got the right sort of kit there.

“You can see an unprecedented British effort to deal with what has been an unprecedented catastrophe for the region. We have not had a storm like this since records began in 1850.

“We have responded in a timely and highly organised fashion. We are going to be there for the long term.”

A police officer and a prison guard died in a head-on collision thought to be related to Hurricane Irma, police have confirmed.

The crash took place in the hurricane evacuation zone, Palm Beach County sheriff’s office announced on Twitter.

Fox News named the officers as Hardee County deputy Julie Bridges and Florida Department of Corrections sergeant, Joseph Ossman.

4m without power in Florida

The number of homes currently without power in Florida now stands at more than 4m, according to the latest update from the Florida State Emergency Response Team. That represents 41% of the state, it said.

The worst hit areas are Miami Dade county where 892,470 are without power (down from 1.1m) and neighbouring Broward county where 678,000 don’t have power (down from 933,000).

It seems it is a right of passage for every TV journalist and meteorologist to venture out into the elements during the midst of a wild storm. Live broadcasts are often met with wind-swept hair, drenched parkas and soaked microphones, as journalists attempt to maintain composure and report to camera.

Dramatic footage posted on Twitter on Monday shows CNN’s Chris Cuomo braving torrential rain and howling winds in his coverage of Hurricane Irma from Naples, Florida.

Debbie Wasserman–Schultz, a Democratic Congresswoman for Florida’s 23rd congressional district, says her state will require the most expensive programme in US history to recover from the hurricane.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she said:

“This is the most significant storm that has hit the United States in modern times. What is very serious about it is that it is hitting virtually the entire state, multiple major metropolitan areas, and we are going to have a recovery the likes to which we have not seen in the United States.

“There are a million and half people without power just in the two counties that I represent in Congress. When we have just in Congress passed a significant emergency supplemental aid package for the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and that was $15bn and when we go back to Washingtong later this week we are going to need to immediately get to work on a much more significant supplemental aid package because this recovery is going to be the most expensive in history.

The Harvey aid package was £15bn I would say that this would be exponentially larger.”

Updated

SUMMARY

  • Hurricane Irma is continuing to lash Florida as it moves north up the peninsula. It is currently heading into the Tampa Bay area, according to the latest updates from the US national hurricane centre, but the storm is weakening and has been downgraded to a category one storm. It was a category four storm when it first made landfall in the Florida Keys.
  • The most immediate threat from the storm is the possibility of storm surges. The critical point could come at high tide, the USNHC said, and bring up to 15ft (4.5m) of water flooding inland in the Tampa area. High tide is expected at St Petersburg at 5.30am.
  • The hurricane’s maximum sustained winds weakened to 85 mph (135 kph) with additional weakening expected, the USNHC said at 2am local time.
  • Forecasters say they expect Irma’s centre to stay inland over Florida and then move into Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. It will weaken into a tropical storm over far northern Florida or southern Georgia on Monday as it speeds up its forward motion.
  • The full extent of damage in Florida is not known although at least 3.3 million homes are without power in the state, with the prospect of more outages as Irma continues north. Miami International Airport will remain closed until at least Tuesday.
  • In the Caribbean, the premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has asked for immediate aid from the British government to get the territories back on their feet after being devastated by Irma last week. He said the situation was “critical” and called for a “comprehensive package” to rebuild the islands.
  • The clean-up operation is continuing in the Caribbean where it is thought 28 people have been killed. French president Emmanuel Macron has promised to visit the badly-hit French island of St Martin on Tuesday. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said the death toll on the Dutch part of St. Martin had doubled to four, and that 70% of homes had been damaged or destroyed.

Irma weakens to category one storm – USNHC

Irma has been downgraded again to category one and is “weakening” as it heads north of Tampa, the national hurricane centre said in its 2am update. The hurricane’s maximum sustained winds weakened to 85 mph (135 kph) with additional weakening expected.

Updated

If you’re just waking up in the UK/European time zone and want to catch up on the lastest, we have just updated our news report on the progress of Irma over the Florida peninsula and the clean-up operation in the Caribbean.

Check out this video of the storm as it crashed into Florida on Sunday.

Irma 'lashing central Florida' – USNHC

The storm is moving northwards between Lakeland and Tampa, according to the latest update from the hurricane centre, “lashing” central Florida as it goes.

The update gives the location of the centre of the storm as right here, indicating that it has veered north-northwest in the past hour as forecast earlier.

Our reporter Jessica Glenza is in St Petersburg and says that although the strength of the storm has dropped to category 2 the threat from storm surges remains. She says the critical point at St Petersburg could come at 5.30am at high itde.

Irma raked the northern coast of Cuba on Saturday night, early Sunday, causing flooding and widespread damage.

But that doesn’t seem to have dampened the party spirit of thousands of holidaymakers caught up in the drama, according to AP in the resort town of Varadero.

AP reports:

British visitor Josephine Breslin, 49, spent the night on an inflatable bed in a hotel bathroom when Irma’s 120mph (195km) winds walloped Cuba’s top beach destination, but after helping sweep up on Sunday morning, she felt ready to start relaxing.

“I think the atmosphere now is relief, knowing it is past and the building is still there and everyone is OK.

“You can feel people are settling down, the winds are going, the sun is coming out, its business as usual, Cuban rum – yes please!”

Tourists gather in a hotel bar in Varadero, Cuba on Sunday.
Tourists gather in a hotel bar in Varadero, Cuba on Sunday. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Back in the Caribbean and French president Emmanuel Macron will visit the territory of St Martin on Tuesday to inspect the damage caused by Irma. It is thought that at least 28 people have died in the Caribbean storms.

Does Macron’s visit mean that British prime minister Theresa May will be under pressure to visit the British territories affected? People there think the government could be doing more, so if she does decide to go it might be interesting. When she visited the scene of the Grenfell Tower fire in June she was heckled by residents furious at what they saw as government complacency.

Two men look for belongings in the rubble of their restaurant in Orient Bay, St Martin.
Two men look for belongings in the rubble of their restaurant in Orient Bay, St Martin. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

The financial markets in Asia have brushed aside any concerns about a possible drag on the US economy from the superstorm. Estimates reckon that the storm could cost $300bn in cleanup and insurance claims, and also impact US food prices because of Florida’s position as the second-largest produce grower in the US and the world’s second-largest producer of orange juice.

Trees and branches torn down in Miami.
Trees and branches torn down in Miami. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Anyway, investors don’t seem too bothered. The Nikkei in Japan has surged 1.4% helped by a stronger dollar and the absence of another nuclear test by North Korea. The ASX200 in Sydney is up 0.8% and the Hang Seng 0.9%. The Kospi in Seoul added 0.8% as well.

Lee Kyung-min, a stock analyst at Daishin Securities in Seoul, told Reuters:

It’s too early to say the risks are gone, but one thing for sure is that market players now think the situation won’t get worse as it did some weeks ago.

I’ve managed to get clarification from American Airlines about flights out of Miami. The company has confirmed that IT WILL NOT resume flights until Tuesday at the earliest. It earlier said it was resuming some on Monday eveningbut this was contradicted by the airport which said it would be closed until Tuesday. See this blogpost.

Here’s what the airline told me:

The Miami-Dade Aviation Department has announced that Miami International Airport (MIA) will remain closed until Tuesday, Sept. 12. American now plans to resume limited operations when the airport reopens.

Resumption of service at airports will be based on airport and roadway conditions, including the ability of our team members to get to work. We are also coordinating closely with our partners at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These three agencies must conduct their own assessment of their operations prior to any airline resuming service.

Glad to clear that up and thanks @AmericanAir

The cleanup operation is under way across the Caribbean. One organisation that is trying to help is the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team which compiles open sourced maps of disaster zones. So far they’ve mapped 150,000 homes affected by the storm and their information is being used by The Dutch red Cross and Map Action to determine what needs to be done. They’re lso on the case for the Mexican earthquake and Bangladesh floods.

You can find out more at their website here if you want to get involved. And they’re at @hotosm

A little something to warm your heart. The actor Kirsten Bell, who was the voice star of Frozen, is sitting out the storm in Orlando and has visted a refuge centre to sing for the kids stuck there.

Here she is. For those of you not familiar with her oeuvre, I’ve done the hard Googling for you and this one’s called Do You Want To Build A Snowman?

3.3m homes and businesses without power in Florida

The storm is going to change course to north-northwest during the night, the USNHC has said. It’s currently just north of Arcadia at this grid reference so that change will push it towards St Petersburg/Tampa.

It also said Irma was producing widespread damaging winds across much of Florida. Important to remember though that the storm has been downgraded to category 2 with less powerful winds than had been feared 24 hours ago.

And just as a warning to you if you’re in that part of Florida, our reporter Jessica Glenza @JessicaGlenza is in St Petersburg and told us a short while ago that she was losing reception on her cell phone.

More than 3.3m homes and businesses have lost power in the state. Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric utility, said there were nearly 1m customers without power in Miami-Dade County alone.

Looks like it’s just gone in Palm Harbor, just north of Tampa.

Updated

Florida senator Marco Rubio has tweeted that Hialeah hospital in Miami has only two hours of diesel left for its generator. He has appealed for help or for Florida Power and Light to restore power as soon as possible to the 378-bed acute hospital.

Hmm. This is confusing. No sooner had Reuters said that American will resume some flights out of Miami International on Monday than Associated Press says the airport will remain closed on Monday. Tweet seems clear enough. I’ve contacted the airline for clarity.

American Airlines will resume limited flights from Miami International on Monday, the company said on Sunday, according to Reuters.

It cancelled all flights at the airport on Friday evening in anticipation of Hurricane Irma, along with flights at three other south Florida airports. All American flights remain canceled until at least Monday at 12 other Florida airports, as well as Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia.

'Critical' situation in British Virgin Islands – premier

While the blog has focused on Florida, we mustn’t forget that Irma has left a huge trail of destruction throughout the Caribbean.

One of the worst-affected places has been the British Virgin Islands where the storm struck on Wednesday, tearing down houses and killing at least five people.

The premier of the islands, Orlando Smith, has called for the UK to provide long-term support in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

‘There’s nothing left’: British Virgin Islands devastated by Hurricane Irma

“We are a resilient people but this has shaken us to our core,” Smith said and called the situation on the islands “critical”.

British troops have been deployed to the area, with the Royal Navy delivering medical supplies, including vaccines, by helicopter.

“A comprehensive economic package for reconstruction backed by the UK Government will be needed over the long-term in order to return to normalcy,” he said.

On a more cheerful note, two manatees stranded when Irma sucked the water out of Sarasota Bay were rescued by county deputies using tarps to drag them out into deeper water.

Several people posted photos of the mammals on Facebook Sunday, hoping rescue workers or wildlife officials would respond. Michael Sechler posted that the animals were far too massive to be lifted, so they gave them water.

My favourite fact about this story is that it all went down in Manatee County.

You can watch a video of the animals being rescued here, courtesy of NECN news.

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The latest USNHC forecast repeats the warnings about dangerous storm surges along the coast. Despite the ferocious winds and rain, the surges appear to be Irma’s biggest threat to human life and buildings.

The USNHC warns that the surge of water from Cape Sable in the south to Captiva west of Fort Myers could be as high as 15ft (4.5m) above ground if it coincides with the high tide. As Governor Scott said yesterday, that could cover your house.

In the stretch of coast from Captiva to Anna Maria Island near St Petersburg, the water could rise up to 10ft above ground level.

The USNHC – again – has a very good explainer about how storm surges form with sea water being driven towards the shore by the hurricane’s winds.

There are various ways of tracking the path of Irma. It’s now passing over Fort Myers – where it looks very, very windy – and heading north up the coast.

Fort Myers in Florida.
Fort Myers in Florida. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The hurricane centre folks say the storm is travelling at 14 miles an hour at the current time, with sustained winds of 105mph. Based on that it will reach the bigger cities of St Petersburg and Tampa at around 4am EDT if it continues on the same forecast path and at the same speed. More than 500,000 people live in those two cities.

The USNHC tracker.
The USNHC tracker. Photograph: US/USNHC

Thanks to those of you getting in touch and following the blog. The excellent US national weather service website has a lot of graphics and maps showing the forecasts for flooding in Florida. This is a screengrab from the site and shows that there could be up to 6ft of water in Naples.

(I should add that it also shows a lot of other things, including forecasts for rainfall, temperatures and wind speeds.)

Naples flooding.
Flooding forecast for west Florida. Photograph: USNHC

Updated

Eyewall hammering Fort Myers – USNHC

The eyewall of the storm is “hammering” Fort Myers on the west coast of Florida, the national hurricane centre has announced, and that Irma is still at the top end of category 2 intensity with winds of 110mph (177kmh).

Water levels in Naples were at 3.9ft (1.18m) at 7pm EDT.

If you’d like to get in touch, you can email me at martin.farrer@theguardian.com or find me on Twitter @MartinFarrer

This is Martin Farrer taking over our ongoing coverage of Hurricane Irma as it continues its furious progress up the west coast of Florida.

Just to get started, this is a very useful tweet from those helpful Nasa people showing the path taken by Irma in the last 48 hours or so.

Irma so far and what's next

Hurricane Irma will bear down on Fort Myers, north of Naples, within the hour as a category two storm, with sustained winds of 110mph. Storm surges have begun in and around Naples, with waters rising more than four feet in less than an hour and forecasts predicting as much as 10-15ft above ground level.

  • Hurricane Irma made landfall at Cudjoe Key at 9.10am, with sustained winds of 130mph. Massive storm surges, estimated at 10ft or higher, inundated buildings, overwhelmed roads and cut off the Keys from mainland Florida.
  • Parts of downtown Miami flooded with rainwater and storm surges several feet deep, and tornadoes swept across swaths of south-eastern Florida. Winds toppled two construction cranes in downtown Miami, and all around south Florida brought down trees, live power lines, and street signs.
  • The storm then swept along the south-western coast line before making landfall again at Marco Island and Naples, at 3.35pm, as a category three storm, with sustained winds of 120mph, blinding walls of rain, and gusts as strong as 140mph. As it approached Naples, the storm’s winds temporarily drained Tampa Bay, raising fears that the weakened hurricane would still wallop cities with surges.
  • More than 2.7 million people have lost power, and more than 70,000 are in shelters, not including police, national guard emergency personnel. About 6.5 million people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas all around the state, roughly a third of the state’s entire population. Officials will not know the scope of the damage for at least another day, and urged people not to go outside, where debris, contaminated water, and live electrical lines remain life-threatening hazards.
  • Governor Rick Scott warned that south-west Florida could see storm surges of 10-15ft above ground – waves as tall as a one-storey home, able to carry off people, cars, and mobile homes. Tampa should expect surges as large as five feet, and south-eastern Florida surges of three to six feet, high enough to float cars or envelop a person.
  • At least 25 confirmed were dead around the Caribbean, including 11 on French St Martin, the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dutch St Maarten, Barbuda, and Anguilla. Survivors and relief workers who stepped out into towns of northern Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, Barbuda and other islands found whole homes and businesses gutted by the wind and water.
  • Hurricane Jose, also a category four storm, has shifted northward, creating hope in the eastern Caribbean that survivors might be spared a second hurricane in five days.
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Updated

I began today with two billboards outside the evacuated hotel I’m sheltering in in Naples, Florida.

By lunchtime the left-hand billboard had been scrunched up by Irma into a knot of twisted steel. And now the Budweiser billboard beside it has succumbed too, crumpled in a second heap of metal.

Naples
Naples Photograph: Ed Pilkington
Naples
Naples Photograph: Ed Pilkington

Irma’s powerful storm surges are rushing onto Marco Island in the wake of the hurricane’s eye and winds. Police are among the few people who seem to have stayed on the island.

In Miami, Richard Luscombe reports on the shifting winds and the tentative hope that Florida’s south-east coast has endured its worst for the storm.

While the western side of Florida starts to grapple with the worst of what Irma has to throw at it, weary residents on the east coast are beginning to look forward to an easing of the hurricane force winds that have been lashing communities in and around Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach since the early hours of Sunday.

The far reaches of Irma’s powerful feeder bands will draw level and eventually move north of the Florida’s most heavily populated areas through the evening hours, weather experts say, with the most treacherous conditions gone by about midnight.

“The winds still are going to gust to 90mph [but] for Miami-Dade the gusts should be diminishing about 8 o clock this evening, “ said Betty Davis, chief meteorologist for Miami’s ABC10 News.

“In Broward, they’ll be diminishing around 8 to 10 this evening, and in the Palm Beach area those hurricane force gusts should be diminishing around midnight.”

That doesn’t mean residents with cabin fever get out and about to survey the damage and begin the clean up because still dangerous tropical storm force winds of up to 73mph will continue to blow through Monday morning, and a curfew is in effect until daylight hours in many of South Florida’s cities anyway.

But a lessening of the strongest winds that have downed trees and power lines, ripped tiles from roofs and kept about six million people shuttered up inside for up to 36 hours will come as a welcome relief.”

Fortunately it looks like we’re near that last chapter for us here in the south-east coast,” said Ed Rappaport, acting director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre. But, he said, “it looks like we’ll be dealing with Irma for the next 12 to 18 hours as a hurricane, and unfortunately Tampa will get at least a category 1 level. But it’s not so much the wind up there, it’s going to be the storm surge.”

Flooding in the Brickell neighborhood as Hurricane Irma passes Miami, Florida.
Flooding in the Brickell neighborhood as Hurricane Irma passes Miami, Florida. Photograph: Stephen Yang/Reuters

Drawing on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meteorologist Dave Epstein notes underlines the extraordinary rate of the storm surge following in the wake of Irma’s eye.

In less than an hour the waters have rushed back by more than almost four and a half feet.

President Donald Trump has declared a major disaster in Florida, and ordered federal funds to help the state and NGO recovery work that will begin once the storm allows.

In a statement, the White House said assistance can include “grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.”

Federal funding is also available to the State and to tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work in all 67 counties in the State. For a period of 30 days from the start of the incident period, assistance for emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, is authorized at 100 percent of the total eligible costs.

Furthermore, Federal funding is available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide

Residents and business owners who sustained losses in the designated counties can begin applying for assistance by registering online at DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 1-800-621-FEMA(3362) or 1-800-462-7585 (TTY) for the hearing and speech impaired. The toll-free telephone numbers will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (local time) seven days a week until further notice.

Updated

At the Lealman Innovation Academy Shelter in St Petersburg, Jessica Glenza has spoken with people ordered to evacuate or with no where else to flee the storm.

Just before 4pm, Doug Skater hopped out of an old pick-up and strode through a packed parking lot toward Lealman Innovation Academy.

“They turned off the power to the trailer because the storm is coming, now how much sense does that make?” he said, a state ID on a yellow landyard bouncing on his chest as he walked. Skater is a 43-year-old Largo man who evacuated a mobile home to come to here and see if the shelter had room for him.

Skater was homeless until he bought that mobile home. The units are some of the most susceptible to flooding and wind damage, all were evacuated by sheriffs.

“I actually like” the storm, Skater said. “It makes people think – you have to appreciate what you own.”

Roads look busier on Christmas morning than they did late afternoon Sunday in Pinellas. Hurricane Irma was moving up the coast, and winds and rain were quickly intensifying. People were mostly buckled up and battened down, ready for a storm that has received wall-to-wall cable news coverage to be over.

“I’ve been through a Cat 1 hurricane in Key West – that was no picnic,” said Dale Posedel, a 57-year-old who as a maintenance man at a mobile home park, (“if it’s still there”).

His home in St. Petersburg is prone to flooding, he said, so he and a friend came here, to a middle school-turned-shelter housing 1,400 people on high ground in the Lealman neighborhood. His friend, however, was not accepted. He had a dog.

“I haven’t heard from him”, Posedel said, hoping his friend had found shelter. “

Another woman, Jasna Gajic, 60, tells me she was, “scared for roof,” of her apartment. “I come here this morning,” she said, about her last-second decision to evacuate.

Tonya Mitchell, a middle school principal in Clearwater, was sitting behind Lealman Innovation Academy’s desk, “just wanting it to pass”, she said of the storm.

“I do feel like the area is prepared,” she said, looking around at her charges, people who seemed both weary and restless. The mobile home park across the street was evacuated by sheriff’s deputies, many staying in the school. “You can replace things,” she said.

Irma's eye descends on Naples

Ed Pilkington has ventured into the eye of the storm in Naples, currently directly over the city.

We’ve just had a rare experience. Having been hunkered down for the past hour in violent 100mph winds we have just stepped out of our evacuated hotel into the daylight.

The reason we could do that because we are now in the eye of the storm – literally. Suddenly everything became bright and still, and going outside we could begin to see just a tiny part of the wreckage with several trees down. The wind is so calm it’s like nothing ever happened. It won’t last though. The southern eye wall is about to reach us and then we will be pummelled all over again.

Local NBC reporter Erika Glover, like the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington, is in Naple and cautiously surveying Irma’s damage.

Waters are rising extremely quickly. In about an hour, the tide has risen by 5.5ft, according to Noaa recordings. Officials have forecast a 10-15ft storm surge above ground.

Irma slows to category two

Naples should expect imminent dangerous storm surges after hurricane Irma’s eye passes along Florida’s west coast, the National Hurricane Center has warned in its 5pm advisory.

The storm’s eye is about five miles north of Naples, and 30 miles south south-east of Fort Myers. It has maximum sustained winds of 110mph, slowing to a category two storm.

Storm surges have already begun in some sections of the city, rising over two feet over the course of half an hour. Governor Rick Scott has warned repeatedly that surges, although unpredictable, often rush in after the strongest winds seem to have died down.

Updated

Naples Municipal Airport has reported a gust of 142mph at 4.34pm, near reports of 135mph gust and sustained winds of 93mph – the most powerful recorded gusts on the mainland.

In Naples, Ed Pilkington is recording what he can of the storm, including the eerie keening of the wind and all the sounds it’s kicking up inside his hotel.

Scenes from the storm’s eyewall in Naples, floods in Miami, and Tampa Bay emptied of its waters, pushed out by winds that, when they turn, will bring it rushing back.

Palm trees blow in the wind as Hurricane Irma passes through Naple.
Palm trees blow in the wind as Hurricane Irma passes through Naples. Photograph: David Goldman/AP
A flooded street is seen in the Brickell area of downtown Miami.
A flooded street is seen in the Brickell area of downtown Miami. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A car is seen in a flooded street in Miami.
A car is seen in a flooded street in Miami. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Residents inspect the extreme receding water in Tampa Bay.
Residents inspect the extreme receding water in Tampa Bay. Photograph: Brian Blanco/Getty Images

Updated

Ed Pilkington is in Naples, Florida, as the eyewall of hurricane Irma descends on the city.

The full might of Irma is now right in front of our eyes outside the window in Naples, Florida. It came on very quickly as the eye wall struck.

About 15 minutes ago we were seeing the trees being tossed around by violent winds.

Then about 10 minutes ago the trees started to be obscured by driving rain that was moving fast and almost horizontally across our window in great bands.

Right now it’s got even worse than that. You cannot see anything but whiteness. It’s like a snow blizzard. The rain is so thick it’s like a giant white sheet shooting across at incredible speed.

And this comes before the sea starts to surge and the flooding starts.

Police on Marco Island, the site of Irma’s second landfall on Sunday, have tweeted out a photo from almost the center of the storm.

In Naples, people can do little but watch the gigantic eyewall of the storm move over the city.

Irma has slowed to a maximum sustained windspeed of 115mph, its eye a mere 10 miles from Naples. The National Hurricane Center is detecting gusts of up to 155mph in the area. At 4pm it’s up to 97mph.

Updated

Hurricane Irma is battering all of south Florida, its eye wall currently crashing over Naples, on the west coast, where Ed Pilkington is reporting for the Guardian.

Irma makes landfall on Marco Island

Hurricane Irma has made landfall on Marco Island, the National Hurricane Center has announced, with life-threatening storm surges of 10ft to 15ft feared there, Naples, and in other low-lying sections of Florida’s west coast.

Irma first made landfall on Cudjoe Key at 9.10am, a category four storm. It made second landfall at 3.35pm on Marco Island, about 15 miles from Naples.

With sustained winds of 120mph, the category 3 storm is moving northward up the coast toward Fort Myers and Tampa Bay, after barreling across the Florida Keys and raking the entirety of south Florida with blasts of stinging, near horizontal rain, sudden tornadoes, storm surges and winds as fast as 109mph.

The storm has cut off the Florida Keys, overwhelming towns and the only road to the mainland with storm surges believed to have reached 10ft to 14ft. Authorities said no one would should attempt to return to the county until inspectors can reach its bridge. An unknown number of people are trapped on the islands, where more surges threaten.

Rain and storm surges have overwhelmed parts of downtown Miami, especially in the Brickell neighborhood, and two construction cranes have collapsed on to buildings. Tornadoes have sliced through sections of eastern south Florida and winds across the state have toppled trees, live power lines, street signs, and billboards.

More than two million people have lost power, more than 70,000 are in shelters, and police and emergency personnel have taken to shelters. Several cities ordered residents to boil all their tap water, for fear of contamination in the public supply.

On the west coast, the storm temporarily drained Tampa Bay. National Weather Service officials delivered an urgent warning about a “catastrophic storm surge” for Naples, Marco Island and Everglades City. Tampa itself was warned of surges of 5ft to 8ft, sweeping in unpredictably and able to carry off people, cars and mobile homes.

“We know we are ground zero for this storm,” Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn said. “We have avoided it for 90 years but our time has come to be ready.”

Governor Rick Scott has warned people repeatedly to stay in shelters until authorities can confidently give an all-clear. The storm has killed at least 27 people on its course across the Caribbean, from a category 5 giant to one of the most dangerous category 3 storms in US history, leaving whole islands with the appearance of bombed out cities.

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Updated

More than two million in Florida have lost power, according Florida Power & Light, the main utility service in the state, as hurricane Irma continues to wipe out power lines and batter infrastructure.

Several cities and counties, including Hollywood and Broward County, have ordered residents to boil water, out of concern that flood waters – often a stew of rain, seawater and sewage – have seeped into the public supply.

Hurricane Irma is battering both sides of the Florida coast with hurricane force winds. At 3.32pm the Naples Municipal Airport reported to the National Weather Service 83mph sustained winds and gusts up to 115mph.

Marco Island, under the eyewall of the hurricane, has just reported a 130mph gust, according to the National Weather Service.

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As of 3pm, the center of Hurricane Irma is about 20 miles away from Naples, the National Hurricane Center reports, with sustained winds of 120mph. The storm’s eyewall is over Marco Island.

Naples Municipal Airport reports sustained winds of 55mph and gusts up to 82mph. Across the state, Miami is awash in thick, spitting rain driven almost horizontally by the wind, with winds of similar force. Parts of downtown Miami are underwater in storm surges.

Updated

A second construction crane has broken in downtown Miami, local news reports, as its boom snapped off its tower and landed on the unfinished building.

In a statement, the building’s developer, PMG, said its priority was safety. “We will have a crew over to secure the crane as soon as the weather permits.”

There are about two dozen construction cranes around the city, and authorities urged people who live near them to go to shelters or friends’ rather than stay home.

As in downtown Miami, a mix of rain and seawater have covered the roads of Hollywood, Florida. With strong sustained winds and even more powerful gusts, the cities look like they have rapids flowing through their streets.

French President Emmanuel Macron will go to the devastated territory of St Martin on Tuesday, the AP reports.

French authorities have said at least eight people were killed as a result of hurricane Irene, and that about 95% of the building’s on the French-administered side were destroyed. More than 1,100 military, healthcare, and relief personnel have been sent to the island, along with tens of thousands of rations. France has also sent police, in response to reports of widespread looting.

The French Carribean island of Saint-Martin after Irma.
The French Carribean island of Saint-Martin after Irma. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

The National Hurricane Center has just issued an “urgent” message for the area of Naples and Marco Island: “water levels from storm surge to rise rapidly”.

“With the passage of the eye of Irma during the next couple of hours, the wind direction will shift to onshore, causing water levels along the southwest coast of Florida to rapidly rise in a matter of minutes. MOVE AWAY FROM THE WATER! Life-threatening storm surge inundation of 10 to 15 feet above ground level is expected in this area.”

Irma slows to category three

Hurricane Irma has been downgraded to a category three storm with sustained 120mph winds, and is steadily approaching landfall on Florida’s gulf coast.

The storm is about 35 miles south of Naples. It has drained massive amounts of water from Tampa Bay ahead of storm surges, cut off the Florida Keys, and put swaths of downtown Miami underwater. Tornadoes have cut across much of central and east Florida, including one formed in the last hour near Fort Lauderdale airport.

The National Hurricane Center’s 2pm advisory warns people not to underestimate the storm, which will “remain a powerful hurricane while it moves near or along the west coast of Florida”.

The NHC’s Atlantic Office has just issued an all-caps warning for everyone on the state’s western coast: “MOVE AWAY FROM THE WATER!”

Updated

Florida police in Broward county have shot one attempted burglar and arrested a second, the AP reports.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Sunday that the homeowners in Weston were out of town but saw the burglars remotely inside the house through a home surveillance system.

Deputies responded shortly before 3am and one of the two juvenile males was shot outside the home. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries. The other person was arrested.

Their names were not immediately released.

Updated

Jessica Glenza is in her childhood home of St Petersburg, near Tampa Bay, where storm surges are expected to reach five to eight feet. Tampa’s mayor said earlier Sunday that he intends to enforce a strict curfew to get people inside before the storm makes land. When it does, police will be unable to help anyone until conditions improve.

The storm is still 190 miles south of the mouth of Tampa Bay, the body of water between Pinellas county (where I am) and Hillsborough County (where Tampa is).High tide is expected just after 5am in Tampa Bay, and the worst of the storm is expected around and after midnight.

It is difficult to say how many people have evacuated: people have clearly fled, but A many refused to leave. Only about one third of the houses are boarded up in our neighborhood, in part because of lack of supplies. Plywood was extremely difficult to find. Similarly, there is no nearby gas.

Police are no longer allowing people to go onto barrier islands in Pinellas, such as Treasure Island, even if they live there. Curfews have been issued for St Petersburg and Tampa, at 5pm and 6pm respectively.

Updated

Florida Keys county 'closed'

The south Florida county that includes the Florida Keys and the state’s south-west extremities up to Everglades City, has “closed”, according to the government’s social media accounts.

Governor Rick Scott said earlier Sunday that US-1, the only road from the mainland to the islands, is underwater. He said that one of his highest priorities, after the storm finally breaks, is to get re-establish a supply lane to the Keys.

The NWS on Key West meanwhile has just reported that – based on its reading of a social media photo – the storm surge at Cudjoe Key was 10-14ft. “Photograph showed water nearing the base of a house on stilts, stated to be approximately 15 feet above ground level.”

Ed Pilkington is in Naples, Florida, reporting on the storm and directly in its path. The National Weather Service’s midday projections suggest the hurricane may make landfall there later today.

Even with Irma some 50 miles south-east of Naples, the winds are so strong that two windows have broken at his hotel, he says.

Two Florida law enforcement officers have died in a traffic accident, the sheriff’s department has confirmed in Hardee County, east of Sarasota.

The officers were named as Julie Ann Bridges, a Hardee County deputy, and Joseph Ossman, a sergeant with the Florida department of corrections. In a statement, the governor’s office siad “the cause of the traffic accident remains under investigation and more details will be released by the Florida Highway Patrol”.

It’s not clear whether storm conditions were a factor in the accident. Around the Caribbean at least 25 people have been confirmed killed by the storm.

“I am heart broken to learn of the loss of these two individuals,” Governor Rick Scott said in the statement. “Our law enforcement and correctional officers work every day to keep Floridians safe. It is because of their work we are able to live in a state where people can raise their families safely. My heart goes out [to] their families and the entire law enforcement and correctional community.”

Though Florida’s east coast was spared a direct hit, conditions there remain extremely dangerous. The National Hurricane Center has just issued an advisory saying that Irma has encompassed all of south Florida, and Miami International reported a 92mph gust around 1pm.

This reporter’s mom is one of the millions of people just inland of the evacuation zones, in her case Boca Raton. The wind, she says, is a steady droning roar.

“It feels like a giant has grabbed and is shaking your house.”

The backyard is lined by a wooden fence. She can hear the wind whistling through its spaces, jangling its hinges, and the wood itself bang and clatter with the gusts.

She can’t see much of what’s happening outside the house because of metal storm shutters encasing its windows, but she can hear the blasts of rain whipped at weird angles by the wind – and she can hear the wind itself.

Naples is about to suffer the brunt of hurricane Irma’s force, the National Weather service warns, with the storm’s eye about 50 miles south of the city.

Irma so far and what's next

  • Hurricane Irma made landfall at Cudjoe Key at 9.10am, with sustained winds of 130mph, the second category four hurricane to strike the mainland United States in two weeks. Seawater flooding over US-1 has cut off the Keys from the mainland, and a handful of images from the islands showed waters in buildings and over cars.
  • Tornadoes swept across swaths of south-eastern Florida, and gusts as strong as 100mph reported north of Miami. Rain and storm surges brought flooding into downtown Miami, and sustained winds approaching 45mph brought down a construction crane, trees and power lines. Police and emergency personnel took to shelters.
  • More than a 1.3 million people have lost power, and more than 70,000 are in shelters. About 6.5 million people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas all around the state, roughly a third of the state’s entire population.
  • Governor Rick Scott warned that south-west Florida could see imminent storm surges of 10-15ft above ground – breathtakingly fast waves as tall as a one-storey home. Tampa should expect surges as large as five feet, and south-eastern Florida surges of three to six feet, high enough to float cars or envelop a person. The Keys have recorded 12in of rain so far, and all of south Florida can expect another 8-15in.
  • Irma is expected to make a second landfall, this time on the mainland near Fort Myers, on Sunday evening. Meteorologists forecast a slight change in the storm’s path, saying that the city of St Petersburg is now more likely to suffer a direct hit than nearby Tampa. “We know we are ground zero for this storm,” mayor Bob Buckhorn said. “We have avoided it for 90 winds but our time has come to be ready.”
  • At least 25 confirmed dead around the Caribbean, including 11 on French St Martin, the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dutch St Maarten, Barbuda, and Anguilla.
  • The storm levelled whole towns in its path, hurtling trees and debris like missiles and bringing huge waves into homes, businesses and hotels. Survivors and relief workers who stepped out into towns of northern Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, Barbuda and other islands found whole homes and businesses gutted by the wind and water.
  • Hurricane Jose, also a category four storm, has shifted northward, creating hope in the eastern Caribbean that survivors might be spared a second hurricane in five days.

Local WSVN reporter Brian Entin is in downtown Miami, where waters are quickly rising in tandem with the gusting winds.

A dire warning from the National Weather Service about the south-west coast of Florida.

The service has also announced an extreme wind warning for Collier County: its radar detected winds stronger than 115mph, “associated with the eyewall” of the storm, are approaching the coast 10 miles south of Everglades City. Nearby are Naples, Marco Island, Chokoloskee, and Golden Gate Estates.

“The safest place to be,” the agency advises, “is in a reinforced interior room away from windows. Get under a table or other piece of sturdy furniture. Use mattresses, blankets or pillows to cover your head and body. Remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions.”

Ten thousand national guard troops are on the way to Florida from around the US, officials say, to help with the recovery, though at the moment many emergency personnel are as trapped as everyone else by the deadly winds, flooding and surges.

Scott says the state and Fema have prepositioned assets, but that they also know that transport will be hard down the length of the state in the wake of the storm. He stresses that US-1 is the only road to the Florida Keys, and that the state wants to be as ready as possible to quickly reach the people trapped there.

Updated

Florida governor: beware 15ft storm surges

Florida governor Rick Scott is giving a noon briefing, with details about the Florida Keys, where reporters and officials have been almost entirely cut off from the mainland.

Seawater has flooded over US-1, the road connecting the archipelago to the peninsula, and the Keys have already recorded up to 12 inches of rain. South Florida should expect an additional eight to 15 inches of rain, he says.

South-west Florida should expect huge and fast storm surges: up to 15 feet of impact above ground level. The Big Bend area will see surges of four to six feet, and Tampa will see a surge of five to eight feet – more than enough to move cars and as tall or taller than a person, with the force of brutal hurricane winds. “The storm surge comes after the strongest winds,” Scott warns, saying that when the wind dies down “do not think it’s safe to come out.”

“The storm surge could rush in and kill you. You need to stay in a safe place.”

The storm surge could be before the storm or after the storm, depending on the winds and your location, Scott says. What’s certain is that it will surge on both coasts.

There have been tornadoes all across central and south Florida, and hurricane force winds will be felt today as far north as Tallahassee, the capital. “Take this deadly storm seriously. Stay safe,” he says. “Pray.”

On Big Pine Key, Florida broadcaster Jim Edds has a brief moment of connection to the mainland.

Updated

The National Hurricane Center has issued its noon advisory on hurricane Irma, “leaving the Florida Keys and headed for the south-west Florida coast”.

At a station at Fowey Rocks, off the coast of south-east Florida near Miami, the NWS has measured sustained winds of 75mph and a 87mph gust. At Pines Middle School, not far inland from Fort Lauderdale, the NWS had a report of a 109mph gust.

The storm is about 65 miles south south-east of Naples, and moving about 9mph. There are tornado warnings and watches across virtually three-fourths of Florida.

Updated

In south-eastern Miami, a storm surge has pushed waves two to three inches deep into city blocks. The NWS predicts 2-4in of rain per hour, flash floods, and life-threatening wind to continue for hours yet.

In Naples, on Florida’s west coast, Ed Pilkington is reporting from the path of the storm as it churns north. Irma is pulling out the sea around Tampa, St Petersburg and Naples – the eerie withdrawal before the surges – and its gusts are already ripping apart buildings, signs, poles, and trees.

Last night I made the two-hour dash across the state, which has to rank as one of the weirdest drives of my life – a bullet straight road cutting across the Everglades, dodging palm tree fronds scattered across the road, startling black vultures into the air, and passing only a couple of vehicles the entire 120-mile journey.

We had been preparing to wake up to an intense storm here in Naples, a city of about 20,000 people in a wider metropolitan area of more than 300,000. But we woke up to a strange calm – if driving rain and trees shaking in the wind can be described as calm – explained by the fact that Irma has slowed in its northerly track to just 8mph and is now not expected to hit this area hard until this evening.

Police vehicles that had been ordered off the road last night are now back patrolling the streets, and several civilian pickup trucks are also driving around, giving the city the sense of normality. But that shouldn’t lead to a false sense of security.

When the hurricane does strike here it is anticipated to do so with up to 100-mph winds and with the capacity to cause a storm surge of up to 15ft – enough to flood the entire coastal zone of Naples and to bring the sea lapping around the evacuated hotel where I’m hunkered down. I for one have no intention of falling for it.

Updated

Tampa mayor: 'we are ground zero'

Tampa’s mayor, Bob Buckhorn, has delivered a stark warning online for everyone in one of Florida’s most densely populated regions. Buckhorn has announced a 6pm mandatory curfew.

“We know we are ground zero for this storm. We have avoided it for 90 winds but our time has come to be ready,” he wrote on Twitter. “We are about to get punched in the face by this storm.”

Buckhorn explained that as the storm truly grips south Florida, authorities will be paralyzed to help. “If you are out on the streets after 6pm we will direct you to get inside. We are taking this curfew very seriously,” he wrote. “We will not be able to come help you if the winds are sustained at 40mph or greater. We cannot put our first responders at risk.”

These are the final hours to act, he added: “We could potentially take a direct hit in the Tampa Area. Take the time now to secure objects in your yard so they don’t become projectiles. The curfew will help us do our jobs to get in and clean up the debris. And @TampaElectric needs to get in to restore power.”

We are going to have a lot of friends and neighbors who need our help, let’s look out for each other and we will get through this.”

Updated

In eerie, parallel scenes at Tampa Bay, Fort Myers, and Key Largo, Irma’s extraordinary power is sucking back the ocean itself before storm surges crash the waves over land again.

On the Keys, video shows soggy, desolate expanses that only hours ago were beneath docks and boats, and that may yet flood with almost no warning.

Richard Luscombe is reporting from Miami, which along with other sections of south-east Florida had an anxious night of whistling gusts and tornado warnings.

It was a rough night in Miami and other areas of South Florida, where there was little sleep for those of us listening to hurricane-force gusts howling behind storm shutters and the roar of the wind complementing the crashing thunderstorms and lightning.

Even if you did manage to nod off, you were quickly awakened by the terrifying high-pitched alarm of your mobile phone, transmitting yet another urgent tornado warning from the National Weather Service urging residents to seek shelter in an interior room immediately.

Such warnings came several times during the night, and it was a challenge rousing our sleepy eight- and 10-year-old sons and marshalling them to immediate safety into a tiny, claustrophobic closet while avoiding filling them with panic. Each warning was in effect for 15 minutes or so before the threat was deemed to have passed, but more than once a warning was superseded by another.

The danger of tornadoes comes from Irma’s feeder bands of storms, which have been swirling over our part of the state since the eye of the hurricane edged away from the coast of Cuba on Saturday. The threat will exist for several hours yet, into Sunday night.

We’ve been through this routine before, notably during Hurricane Wilma in 2005 that scored a direct hit on our part of the Sunshine State and killed 61 people. But we didn’t have kids to worry about back then.

Updated

A construction crane has collapsed on a building in downtown Miami, just visible in this video captured by a NWS employee and posted to Twitter.

There are about two dozen other cranes around the city, designed along with most of its buildings to survive the 130-150mph winds of a strong category four storm, But city officials still urged people who live near the cranes to get away from them to other shelters before the storm.

Conditions in Miami are becoming increasingly dangerous, with sustained winds growing as the storm moves north. Miami-Dade official Esteban Bovo says half the county has lost power now.

It’s worse on the Keys, even though Irma’s eye has crossed over them. Winds are still gusting around 70-90mph, according to the National Weather Service. Photos tweeted by state representative Kionne McGhee shows cars submerged and murky floodwaters rising to a building’s steps. McGhee wrote that the photos are from someone at the Marathon High School, one of the island’s “last resort” shelters.

A handful of reporters are still out in Miami, despite warnings to get inside.

As Irma bears down on the Florida Keys – waters are now three feet above normal at Key West, according to the NWS – survivors on the British Virgin Islands, the southern Bahamas and northern Cuba are only just beginning to reckon with the scale of the storm’s destruction.

The destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Irma in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Irma in the US Virgin Islands. Photograph: AP
Cubans stand by a collapsed building in Havana.
Cubans stand by a collapsed building in Havana. Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images
A damaged structure near the shore of Inagua in the southern Bahamas.
A damaged structure near the shore of Inagua in the southern Bahamas. Photograph: The Royal Bahamas Police Force A/AFP/Getty Images

Irma so far and what's next

  • Hurricane Irma made landfall at Cudjoe Key at 9.10am, with sustained winds of 130mph, the second category four hurricane to strike the mainland United States in two weeks. Stations on the Keys reported sustained winds of 70mph and gusts of up to 106mph, and storm surges pushed the ocean up over roads and into cities.
  • Tornadoes swept across swaths of south-eastern Florida, and at 9.49am the Miami airport reported a gust of 82mph. In the city, the winds have bowelled over trees and toppled street signs, and churning waves began to splash over barriers at coastal and intracoastal areas.
  • More than a million people have already lost power, and more than 70,000 are in shelters away from the coasts. About 6.5 million people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas all around the state, roughly a third of the state’s entire population.
  • Governor Rick Scott warned that south Florida could see 18in of rain and storm surges of 15ft above ground level in south-western stretches – breathtakingly fast waves, twice as tall as a person, that could consume homes before sweeping out again. Three to five feet of storm surge, the expected level in some south-eastern counties, can float cars away and seriously injure people.
  • Irma is expected to make a second landfall, this time on the mainland near Fort Myers, on Sunday evening. Meteorologists forecast a slight change in the storm’s path, saying that the city of St Petersburg is now more likely to suffer a direct hit than nearby Tampa.
  • At least 25 confirmed dead around the Caribbean, including 11 on French St Martin, the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dutch St Maarten, Barbuda, and Anguilla.
  • The storm levelled whole towns in its path, hurtling trees and debris like missiles and crashing huge waves far above ground level. Survivors and relief workers who stepped out into towns of northern Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, Barbuda and other islands found whole homes and businesses looking bombed out, the wind and water gutting them out.
  • Hurricane Jose, also a category four storm, has shifted northward, creating hope in the eastern Caribbean that survivors might be spared a second hurricane in five days.

The Miami Herald has spoken with Larry Kahn, an editor for FLKeysNews.com, who is at one of the “last resort” shelters, Marathon High School, on the central island city of Marathon.

About 50 people are at the school, which has lost power and running water, Kahn said, and the ocean is surging everywhere.

“Everything is underwater. I mean everything,” Kahn said. A sheriff’s deputy told the editor “everyone could be in this building for days,” Kahn said.

“Everyone here seems to be just walking around in a fog.”

You can read the full story here.

The National Weather Service has just reported that the storm is moving away from the lower Keys now, toward the mainland.

Florida Power & Light has announced that more than one million homes have lost power across south Florida, as the winds are picking up on the mainland.

The Miami International airport just reported a 82mph gust: the sustained winds are not yet as intense as on the Keys, but causing dangerous conditions across the state. Palm Beach County has been sending tornado warnings throughout the night, including a new one a few moments ago.

Updated

Irma makes landfall

The storm has made landfall at Cudjoe Key, toward the bottom of the archipelago and about 20 miles east of Key West, at 9.10am, according to the National Weather Service.

For hours, waters have been rushing up overland on the islands and then sweeping out again. Many roads are completely impassable, and the worst surges have yet to come in the wake of the winds.

In Miami, the winds are picking up and downing trees, street signs and power lines.

default

Updated

Irma's eye reaches the Keys

The lower islands of the Florida Keys are now inside the center of the storm, the National Hurricane Center reports. The storm had sustained winds of 130mph at 9am local time.

Shortly before the hour, the National Weather Service station on Key West reported sustained winds of 71mph and gusts up to 90mph. Shortly afterward, the station reported a wind gust of 106mph on Big Pine Key.

Updated

Donald Trump has approved disaster relief funds for Puerto Rico, the US territory that suffered a brush with hurricane Irma only a few days ago.

High winds there toppled trees and power lines, and tens of thousands of people lost power and access to safe water. The president’s disaster declaration makes funding available to people in Culebra, Vieques, and local government and NGO programs.

“Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover,” the White House statement reads.

In Miami-Dade County up through Palm Beach County, on Florida’s east coast, there are intermittent gusts of 80mph wind, as well as streaky periods of intense rain, growing more common.

On the Florida Keys, the storm is pushing the ocean over roads.

Updated

Welcome to our ongoing live coverage of Hurricane Irma, the eye of which this morning made landfall over the Florida Keys after wreaking havoc and causing more than 20 deaths in its drive across the Caribbean.

The US National Weather Service issued this warning for anyone left on the island chain:

If you are here, please go to interior room away from windows. Treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to the safe room in your shelter. Take action now to protect your life. You should already be taking cover.

The US National Hurricane Center said in an early morning advisory that the storm was moving north-northwest at 8mph, which suggests a long day ahead. Hundreds of thousands of people are without power and millions have taken authorities’ strenuous advice and evacuated from the path of the storm, which is expected to hit the west of the state hardest.

The Associated Press reports:

The National Weather Service in Miami has issued tornado warnings for a wide swath of Monroe, Miami-Dade and Broward counties in South Florida. Officials say the band of rain and tornado producing cells is moving quickly. There have been no reports of tornadoes touching down.

Our correspondents in Florida – Ed Pilkington in Naples, Richard Luscombe in Miami and Jessica Glenza in St Petersburg – are like all others still in the state hunkering down in safety, waiting for winds to ease and flooding dangers to subside.

Ed’s piece on Miami’s preparation for the storm, here, is a fascinating and worrying look at the divide between rich and poor in the city when it comes to preparing for and facing up to disaster. It now seems the city will not be hit by the worst of Irma, but as the AP report above says, it will still take a severe battering.

Here’s more of our latest Irma coverage:

There is also another big hurricane out there, Jose. Here’s our report:

Updated

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