As Hurricane Irma approaches potential landfall in the United States, residents are being told that buildings where they live may not be inhabitable for weeks or months after the storm runs by South Florida.
After devastating islands in the Caribbean, killing at least 10 people as it passed over such islands as Barbuda, and the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 hurricane. In addition to those losses of life, hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico were left without power, and homes and infrastructure was destroyed along the storm’s path.
“This is a nuclear hurricane,” Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine said, urging residents of his barrier reef town to evacuate. Residents “should leave the beach, they must leave the beach.”
Communities in Southern Florida are preparing for potential landfall of one of the most powerful storms in recorded history, stocking up on vital supplies like water and non-perishables. Reports have swirled of long lines forming for petrol — an increasingly rare commodity in the state — as residents begin their evacuations away from the zones that may be hit hardest by potential landfall of Irma.
Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered along the potential path of the hurricane, including for more than 100,000 residents in Miami-Dade County, all of Palm Beach Island, parts of Broward County, and Monroe County, where Key West is located. Mandatory evacuations have also been issued in coastal Georgia as well.
Florida Governor Rick Scott issued a state of emergency for the entire state of Florida earlier in the week, while Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has issued a similar state of emergency for 30 counties in his state.
“So take this seriously. Leave now, don’t wait,” Mr Scott said during a press briefing Thursday. “It’s wider than our entire state and could cause major and life-threatening impacts on both coasts.”
President Donald Trump, eyeing what could be the second major natural disaster of his presidency, praised the work of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and said that the National Guard has saved more than 14,000 lives in Texas, where Hurricane Harvey brought devastating winds and rains last week as the first major hurricane to make landfall in the continental US in over 10 years.
“I can say this: Florida is as well prepared as you can be for something like this, and now it’s just a question of what happens,” Mr Trump said. “It’s the largest hurricane we’ve ever seen coming out of the Atlantic, and the winds are the strongest that we’ve ever seen rom a hurricane in the region.”
Mr Scott had already activated 100 Florida National Guard members as of Thursday, and all 7,000 members are expected to report for duty on Friday.
Hurricane Irma is the second storm in recorded history to sustain winds at 185 mph for 24 hours straight. The storm hit the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm Wednesday, and left Barbuda devastated, and many other islands in its path with destruction of their own.
Barbuda “is literally rubble,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said. But, he said that his state had been spared from the worst of the storm.
“The essential point is that our main infrastructure has stood up and our country can resume normal life within hours,” he said, perhaps inaccurately as 95 per cent of Barbuda infrastructure was later deemed to have been damaged.
In the French islands of St Martin and St Barthelemy, President Emmanuel Macron of France said that it was too early to assess the damage of Irma, but that it was likely to be considerable. The aftermath, he said, would be “harsh and cruel” after the storm, which had killed at least two people there.
“We will have victims to lament, and the material damage on the two islands is considerable,” Mr Macron said after a crisis meeting in Paris. The “entire nation” stands by the inhabitants of the islands, he added.
Reports of damage in the US and British Virgin Islands also began to emerge after the storm passed through Wednesday. Residents there reported that roofs had been blown off, and that they had seen a deluge of rain accompanied by harsh winds that ripped all of the leaves off to trees, leaving behind a scene of apocalyptic emptiness.
