By CAMILLA SCHICK, ROBIN
LINDSAY and CHRIS CIRILLO
Hurricane Irma churned toward
Florida on Saturday, leaving a trail of death and destruction across the
Caribbean and prompting officials to direct 6.5 million Florida residents to
leave their homes in one of the largest emergency evacuations in American history.
On Saturday evening, Gov. Rick
Scott of Florida warned that the state could get as much as 18 inches of rain,
with the Florida Keys getting up to 25 inches.
Southwest Florida could see a
storm surge of 15 feet above ground level, and entire neighborhoods stretching
northward from Naples to Tampa Bay could be submerged.
“If you have been ordered to
evacuate, you need to leave now,” Mr. Scott said at a 6 p.m. news conference.
“This is your last chance to make a good decision.”
The National Hurricane Center
said on Saturday evening that the eye of Irma was beginning to slowly move away
from the coast of Cuba as it headed northwest toward Florida.
As of 5 p.m. Saturday, the
center said the core of Irma would reach the Florida Keys on Sunday, with
“major hurricane force winds” expected at daybreak. By Saturday night, parts of
Florida were feeling the early effects of Irma.
The westward track, which was
a change from earlier expectations, left some residents and officials
scrambling to find shelter.
Irma made landfall in Cuba on
Friday evening as a Category 5 hurricane, lashing the island’s northern coast
with a direct hit. It became the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in
Cuba since 1924.
The hurricane was downgraded
to Category 3 on Saturday but still had winds of 125 miles per hour, the center
said. It was expected to strengthen before making landfall in Florida.
Here’s the latest:
• At least 25 people were
confirmed dead in areas affected by the storm.
• In addition to an evacuation
order in Miami, one of the country’s largest evacuations, 540,000 people were
told to leave the Georgia coast. Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina
have declared states of emergency.
• At 1 p.m., the National
Hurricane Center said a weather station in Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, reported a
wind gust to 159 m.p.h.
• Mr. Scott said more than 385
shelters were open in Florida and more would open on Saturday night. More than
76,000 people were without electricity, he said.
• Hurricane Jose was passing
farther north of the Leeward Islands than initially predicted, and St. Martin
and St. Bart’s have downgraded hurricane warnings to tropical storm warnings.
Check out our
maps tracking the storm.
• Hurricane Katia, which made
landfall on Mexico’s eastern coast, was downgraded to a tropical depression,
with winds of 35 m.p.h. Two people died in a mudslide
in the state of Veracruz after the storm hit, The Associated Press reported.
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Residents and officials
scramble for shelters
The storm’s sudden drive to
the west prompted last-minute orders for evacuation in Collier and Lee Counties
in Florida, leaving little time for residents to pack up and find shelter.
“We thought we were safe,” said
a spokeswoman for Collier County who declined to give her name because she was
not authorized to discuss the situation. “We thought we were safe like 36 hours
ago.”
The spokeswoman said that a
forecast at 5 p.m. on Thursday caused county officials to react, readying
shelters and helping residents seeking to evacuate.
Starting on Saturday morning,
lines that were several blocks long formed outside of shelters such as the
Germain Arena, as residents jammed inside.
In Fort Myers, which is in Lee
County, buses that were transporting people to shelters stopped running at 3
p.m. to allow the drivers to seek safety, potentially leaving people who had
not left their homes in time.
By late Saturday afternoon,
all of the shelters in Collier County were at capacity, according to local
news reports. Because of the imminent storm surge, officials told people
living in one-story homes to try to enter shelters anyway, and people in
two-story homes to seek shelter upstairs.
In Miami-Dade County, some
people who had flocked to shelters were reassessing their situation on Saturday
afternoon after learning that the brunt of the hurricane would most likely be
felt farther west.
“We’re going home,” Virginia
Lopez, an administrative assistant at Barry University, said as she loaded her
5-year-old poodle mix, Princess, into her Mazda outside a shelter at Highland
Oaks Middle School after spending the night there with her daughter and
son-in-law. “We decided half an hour ago. The storm has moved to Tampa, so
we’re going to get a lot of rain but it won’t be as bad. I don’t feel so
scared.”
Inside, dozens of people lay
on cots and blankets in the building’s hallways amid a stench of perspiration
and vomit. Some were packing to leave but most seemed resigned to remaining
until the storm blows through.
Florida gets an early feel for
what’s to come
As Hurricane Irma steered its
way toward the Florida Keys on Saturday night, Florida began to feel its
approach. The ocean began rising in Key West, spilling into hotel parking lots
and roads. In the Keys to the north, water levels toppled over the banks of
canals.
In Miami-Dade, tree branches
tumbled and fast-moving bands of powerful rain and wind occasionally made it
hard to walk. Orange County issued a mandatory evacuation for all mobile homes.
[…]
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