BREAKING NEWS

Hurricane Irma makes landfall in Cuba as Category 5

By REUTERS

SEPTEMBER 9, 2017 06:44

Irma struck Camaguey Archipelago with 160 mph (260 kph) winds late on Friday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory. Category 5 is the NHC's most powerful designation.

Irma, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, was expected to hit Florida on Sunday morning, bringing massive damage from wind and flooding to the fourth-largest state by population.

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

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

Irma was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 10 feet (3 meters) on parts of Cuba's northern coast and the central and northwestern Bahamas.

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

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

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

Irma was about 300 miles (485 km) southeast of Miami, the NHC said in its latest advisory.

With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials ordered an historic evacuation in Florida that has been made more difficult by clogged highways, gasoline shortages and the challenge of moving older people.

The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen," Governor Rick Scott told reporters, adding the effects would be felt from coast to coast in the state.

A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the state's population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

US President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was "a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential" and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump's waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.

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