Tag Archives: Hurricane

Florida braces for Hurricane Irma as storm rips through Cuba

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba's northern coast

By Sarah Marsh

REMEDIOS, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma pounded Cuba’s northern coast on Saturday and barreled toward Florida as authorities scrambled to complete an unprecedented evacuation of millions of residents hours before the storm would engulf the state.

The outer band of Irma, which has killed at least 22 people in the Caribbean, was already lashing South Florida with tropical storm-force winds and left nearly 25,000 people without power, Governor Rick Scott said.

The brunt of the hurricane, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, is due to arrive in Florida early Sunday.

Irma could inflict major damage on the fourth-largest U.S. state by population, which is braced for winds well in excess of 100 miles per hour and a huge storm surge that could trigger coastal flooding.

“This is a deadly storm and our state has never seen anything like it,” Scott said at a Saturday morning news conference.

Irma, located about 225 miles (365 km) south of Miami on Saturday morning, still ranked as a Category 5 storm when it crashed into Cuba in the early hours of Saturday. It weakened to a Category 3 as it tore along the island’s northern coastline, downing power lines, bending palm trees and sending huge waves crashing over sea walls.

Maximum sustained winds dipped to around 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour) by 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

But Irma will regain strength as it moves over the warm open water as it approaches Florida, according to the NHS, which expects the storm to arrive in the Keys, an archipelago off the peninsula’s southern tip, on Sunday morning.

On Florida’s West Coast, a long line of people in Estero, north of Naples, lined up to enter an arena that officials converted into an evacuation shelter, one of hundreds that have opened up across the state.

“We got the house all buttoned up,” said Montgomery Campbell, 82, as he stood in line.

Luise Campana Read was one of those who chose to ignore warnings and stay in her home. She said by phone she planned to ride out the storm in her beachfront condo in Fort Lauderdale, with her elderly mother and other family members.

“With a 97-year-old, there was no way I was going to have her sleep on a cot or a blow-up mattress” in a shelter, she said.

The destruction along Cuba’s north central coast was similar to that seen on other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma plowed into Ciego de Avila province around midnight.

State media said it was the first time the eye of a Category 5 storm had made landfall since 1932. In the days before Irma struck, the island’s Communist government evacuated tens of thousands of foreign tourists from resorts on the northern coast.

In Ciego de Avila province, Irma was forecast to generate waves of up to 7 meters (23 feet), with flooding expected as far west as the capital Havana, authorities said on Saturday.

Antonia Navarro, 56, a resident of the northern Cuban port town of Nuevitas in Camaguey, said a local ice cream factory was destroyed and glass windows at a hospital were blown out.

“We are praying to God and the Virgin of Charity that nothing grave happens to the people of Florida, and in particular Miami,” said Navarro, an officer worker. “We have to pray a lot for our relatives who live there.”

“RUNNING OUT OF TIME”

With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida raced to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.

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.

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).

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended slightly lower as investors braced for potential damage and massive insurance claims from Irma. Many economists are predicting that third-quarter gross domestic product will take a hit due to the hurricanes.

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.

Trees sway in the wind at the main square as Hurricane Irma passes by Remedios, Cuba September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GASOLINE SHORTAGES

Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.

About 9 million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state’s 20.6 million residents.

Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.

Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.

The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.

As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

Irma is seen costing at least 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, a French public reinsurance body said on Saturday.

But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.

Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.

(For a graphic on how Irma compares to other major hurricanes, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gTxfqJ)

(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana, Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Bernie Woodall, Robin Respaut and Brian Thevenot in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Helen Popper, Dale Hudson and Diane Craft)

Republicans see tax reform complicated by Trump deal with Democrats

FILE PHOTO: President Trump meets with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders in the Oval Office of the White House. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republican party lawmakers warned on Friday that President Donald Trump’s legislative deal with Democrats to help hurricane victims and keep the government running for another three months could complicate his next big priority – tax reform.

Trump’s sudden shift in strategy hands a clear victory to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and that could slow the Republicans’ legislative agenda, they said.

“This kind of creates complications relative to tax reform,” said Representative Ryan Costello from Pennsylvania. “It seems to me that there’s an element of unpredictability from one issue to the next and this week is sort of a reflection of that.”

“There was a lot of work going into how this was going to take shape in September. And that was entirely undermined … seemingly very spontaneously.”

Following Trump’s deal with Democratic leaders, the House of Representatives on Friday approved legislation that provides $15.25 billion in emergency disaster aid for the victims of Hurricane Harvey, which battered coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana last week, and Hurricane Irma, which is expected to pound Florida in coming days.

Already approved by the Senate on Thursday, the deal also raises the U.S. government’s debt ceiling and allows it to continue financing federal spending programs until Dec. 8, the new deadline for a deal on both issues.

But some Republicans fear the Democrats will be able to use their negotiating clout in early December to resist changes on key tax issues, especially the corporate tax rate, which Trump wants to cut from 35 percent to 15 percent.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse said the experience of watching Trump empower Democrats had been “embarrassing” for a Republican-controlled Congress and that the deal made Schumer “the most powerful man in America.”

Sasse was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted against the deal on Thursday. In the House, all 90 “no” votes came from Republicans but the deal passed comfortably with 183 Democrats and 133 Republicans in favor.

The White House said Trump’s shift in strategy this week clears away complicated issues like the debt ceiling and government funding, both of which had to be resolved in September, so Congress can concentrate more fully on tax reform, which Republicans want to complete by the end of the year.

After the failure of Republican efforts to overturn former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in July, Trump and lawmakers need a legislative victory to shore up their hopes of maintaining Republican majorities in next year’s midterm elections.

FRUSTRATION

Some House Republicans are already frustrated by a lack of details on tax reform from the administration. They hope to see more as soon as next week, though some are skeptical.

“My expectations are low. I think if they had something big they’d be floating elements of it now,” said Representative Darrell Issa.

How House Republicans respond to the tax plan will help determine the challenges they may face passing a fiscal year 2018 budget resolution that is critical to the Republican strategy for tax reform.

The budget contains a procedural rule that would allow Republicans to enact tax legislation with a simple majority in the Senate, which they control by a 52-48 margin.

Republican aides said House leaders had expected to bring the budget to the floor next week, but the document now needs changes to include government revenue projections that take into account current tax policy and the failure to repeal Obamacare, aides say.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a formidable bloc in the House, have said they will not support the budget until they see the tax reform plan and want the resolution to contain more cuts to federal spending than the $203 billion over a decade that it already contains.

It was not clear whether the budget resolution could now suffer from conservative anger over Friday’s vote. Many conservatives have long called for lawmakers to couple any measures that raise the U.S. debt ceiling with reforms to cut spending.

The deal that passed on Friday did the opposite by attaching an increase in the debt ceiling to more spending to keep the government open, as well as adding money for hurricane relief without making any spending cuts elsewhere.

“I love President Trump and I’m with him probably 90 or 95 percent of the time. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to raise the debt ceiling with a $19 trillion public debt and not have any effort to change the way we spend money here in Washington,” said Joe Barton, a House Freedom Caucus member.

Mark Meadows, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, said he did not feel betrayed by Trump and that the legislation was a “unique situation” brought about by the massive storm damage in Texas and Louisiana.

“Because of hurricane relief, there wasn’t a whole lot of options,” Meadows said on MSNBC. But, he added: “Our grassroots are very confused.”

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba’s northern coast

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba's northern coast

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma weakened slightly on Saturday as it battered Cuba’s northern coast while millions of Florida residents were told to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left devastation in its wake.

Downgraded as a Category 4 storm, Irma moved along the Camaguey Archipelago with 155 mph (250 kph) winds early on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It has shifted between the Category 4 and Category 5 classification, which is used for the most powerful storms.

Irma, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, was expected to hit Florida early on Sunday, causing major damage due to high winds and flooding to the fourth-largest U.S. state by population.

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

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

Irma was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 6 feet (two meters) to parts of the island’s northern coast and the central and northwestern Bahamas.

Meteorologists warned that by early Saturday far greater devastation was sure to be caused as Irma moved westward through Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara provinces where it is forecast to turn north toward Florida.

Irma was about 245 miles (395 km) south-southeast of Miami, the NHC said in its latest advisory.

Shoppers encounter empty bread shelves ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irma at a supermarket in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

Shoppers encounter empty bread shelves ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irma at a supermarket in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

“RUNNING OUT OF TIME”

With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida ordered an unprecedented evacuation, racing to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.

“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.

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.

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).

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.

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GAS SHORTAGES

Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.

About nine million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state’s 20.6 million residents.

Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.

Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.

The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.

As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.

Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.

(For a graphic on how Irma compares to other major hurricanes, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gTxfqJ)

(Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Sarah Marsh in Caibarien, Cuba, Bernie Woodall in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper)

Miami hospitals prepare for surge in births during Hurricane Irma

Miami hospitals prepare for surge in births during Hurricane Irma

By Julie Steenhuysen and Jilian Mincer

(Reuters) – While many Miami hospitals are shutting down as Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, some are offering shelter to their pregnant patients, bracing for the increase in births that often accompanies these large storms.

At least three of the city’s hospitals have plans in place to care for women with advanced or high-risk pregnancies.

They could be busy.

When Houston was hit by Hurricane Harvey, the number of women who gave birth spiked. According to a Memorial Hermann Health System representative, at least five of the not-for-profit system’s 11 Houston-area hospitals with labor and delivery units reported increases in the number of deliveries during Hurricane Harvey. In three, deliveries doubled.

The reason may have something to do with a drop in barometric pressure that accompanies a hurricane. A 2007 study published in the Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics noted a causal relationship between low barometric pressure and spontaneous delivery.

But overall, the evidence is inconclusive, said Dr. Shannon Clark, an associate professor in the division of maternal fetal medicine at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico.

“There’s some studies that show an association and some that don’t. It’s kind of mixed,” Clark said in a telephone interview.

Even so, she said, “It’s still worth it to forewarn pregnant women in areas that are going to get hit that there could be a potential complication.”

In Miami, Jackson Health System alerted women who are at least 34 weeks pregnant or who have a high-risk pregnancy that they may take shelter in one of three of its hospitals, as long as they have registered with the hospital in advance. These women are allowed to bring in one guest, but no pets.

Tania Leets, a spokeswoman for the public health system which serves Miami-Dade County, said they offered the same service last year during Hurricane Matthew.

Baptist Health South Florida offers shelter to women in Miami who are at least 36 weeks pregnant or who have a high-risk pregnancy in one of its four area hospitals. A pregnant woman and one adult companion can set up camp in a waiting room area; those who come must bring their own food, water and bedding. The shelter opens at 8 a.m. on Saturday and closes when the storm has passed, Baptist Health South said in a statement.

Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach will likewise shelter women who are at least 36 weeks pregnant or those with high-risk pregnancies, according to a statement on its website.

At Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital in Houston, deliveries started to soar two days before Hurricane Harvey arrived, requiring five managers to help with patient care.

“We all know in this business – full moons and storms are a problem,” said Kim Kendall, director of the hospital’s family birth center.

Staff made an effort to close the shades, redirect the conversation and focus on the delivery. “We tried to maximize the experience and minimize the hurricane,” said Kendall.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Jilian Mincer; Editing by Richard Chang and Jonathan Oatis)

Dissipating storm Katia kills two in mudslide in eastern Mexico

Lifeguards are pictured at a lifeguard post ahead of Hurricane Katia in Veracruz, Mexico, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Victor Yanez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Two people died in a mudslide in Mexico sparked by storm Katia, and thousands were left without power as the weather front dissipated inland on Saturday, threatening to dump rains in waterlogged areas also shaken by a major earthquake this week.

The two people died in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state, when mud loosened from a hillside by Katia’s rains trapped them in their home, Luis Felipe Puente, head of Mexico’s national emergency services, told Reuters.

Katia weakened rapidly after hitting the land on Friday night, although Veracruz Governor Miguel Angel Yunes said the storm had left some 70,000 people without electricity and caused damage in 53 of the Gulf state’s 212 municipalities.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that as a tropical depression, Katia was blowing maximum sustained winds of 35 miles (56 km) per hour as it dissipated over the mountains of central eastern Mexico by midmorning on Saturday.

Mexico is dealing with the aftermath of a huge quake that struck on Thursday night, and President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday that Katia could be especially dangerous in hillsides rocked by the magnitude 8.1 tremor.

The earthquake, the strongest to strike Mexico in more than 80 years, killed at least 61 people.

Katia was about 125 miles (201 km) west northwest of the port of Veracruz by midmorning on Saturday, the NHC said, noting that the threat of heavy rainfall continued.

Officials in Veracruz warned that Katia could cause landslides and flooding, and they urged people to evacuate vulnerable areas.

Mexican emergency services said this week that Katia was worrisome because it is very slow-moving and could dump a lot of rain on areas that have been saturated in recent weeks.

State energy company Pemex [PEMX.UL] has installations in and around the coast of Veracruz but has not reported any disruption to its operations there.

As Katia reached the Mexican Gulf Coast, Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, walloped Cuba’s northern coast.

Millions of Florida residents were ordered to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left catastrophic destruction in its wake.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Jose continued to move northwestward in the Atlantic and was blowing winds of 145 mph as a Category 4 storm about 120 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Saturday.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Help us with the coming challenges by donating to the Hurricane Relief Fund!

Search for survivors in Texas as storm Harvey heads north

By Kami Klein

John 14:27 (MEV) 27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

The challenges upon all of us right now are very real. Unprecedented events are bringing hunger, thirst, survival, right to center stage. As hurricanes batter our shores, earthquakes rumble across Mexico, and fires burn out of control in our western states, we must remember Christ’s call for us to love one another. As a part of the family of God, we must take action. That is why we have created the Hurricane Relief Fund, and that is why Pastor Jim and Lori Bakker, along with a team from Morningside, went to Texas to serve the people. What they saw were people in great need. And now with Hurricane Irma, there will be many, many more whose lives will be in complete upheaval.

James 2:15-17 (MEV) If a brother or sister is naked and lacking daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” and yet you give them nothing that the body needs, what does it profit? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Many are now fleeing Irma, the second catastrophic hurricane to hit the U.S. in less than a month. Thousands more will be suffering in the coming days. Despair and fear are bound to follow. The time is now to be prepared to help them! We need your help!!! Please donate so that we can help our churches in devastated areas provide food, safe drinking water, and shelter and to help these people rebuild their lives!

For those that are now going through these tragic and terrifying times let our actions bring a reminder that in the midst of all of the these things, God is with them!

Joshua 1:9 (MEV) Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

YOU are the hands and feet of Christ! Please donate today!

Hurricane Irma will ‘devastate’ part of U.S.: emergency services head

A member of the Emergency Operations Committee monitors the trajectory of Irma in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. REUTERS/Ricardo Rojas

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Anticipating that Hurricane Irma will “devastate” part of the United States, U.S. officials were preparing a massive response to the storm, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Friday.

With Irma set to hit Florida as early as Saturday night, parts of Florida was expected to lose electricity for days, if not longer, and more than 100,000 people may need shelter, FEMA Administrator Brock Long warned at a news conference.

“Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states,” Long said.

Irma was a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, before being downgraded to Category 4 early Friday after pummeling islands in the Caribbean.

The United States has experienced only three Category 5 storms since 1851 and Irma is far larger than the last one to hit the United States in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to Long.

He warned people not to ignore evacuation orders.

“They need to get out and listen and heed the warnings,” Long said.

A man looks out to the flooded street in Puerto Plata.

A man looks out to the flooded street in Puerto Plata.
REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

Officials have thousands of personnel ready to respond and millions of meals and liters of water in place nearby, Long said.

The National Weather Service said that Friday was the last day to evacuate before winds would start to reach unsafe speeds in Florida.

Airlines added extra flights from Florida on Thursday before announcing plans to halt service from some southern Florida airports starting Friday afternoon.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price called Irma a “remarkably dangerous storm and the window to get yourself in the right spot … is closing rapidly.”

Price said the main hospital in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was closed after being damaged by Irma, and critically ill patients were being evacuated to Puerto Rico or other islands.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted 80-17 to approve a measure to more than double funding to $15.25 billion to FEMA and for local block grants to handle natural disasters. FEMA’s disaster assistance fund could run out of money Friday without action, senators said.

The House is expected to approve the measure on Friday. It had already approved $7.85 billion on Wednesday.

A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

(Editing by Bill Trott and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Irma powers toward Florida, leaving behind path of death, destruction

Irma powers toward Florida, leaving behind path of death, destruction

By Delana Isles

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, drove toward Florida on Friday after lashing the Caribbean with devastating winds and torrential rain, killing 19 people and leaving a swathe of catastrophic destruction.

Irma was about 450 miles (724 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, early Friday after saturating the northern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and pummeling the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The “extremely dangerous” hurricane was downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 early Friday but still packed winds as strong as 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory at 8 a.m EDT (noon GMT).

Irma hit the Bahamas on Friday, where it was forecast to bring 20-foot (six-meter) storm surges before moving to Cuba and then slamming into southern Florida on Sunday.

In Miami, hundreds lined up for bottled water and cars looped around city blocks to buy gas on Thursday. Shortages in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area worsened on Thursday, with sales up to five times the norm.

In Palm Beach, the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate owned by U.S. President Donald Trump was ordered evacuated, media reported. Trump also owns property on the French side of St. Martin, an island devastated by the storm.

A mandatory evacuation on Georgia’s Atlantic coast was due to begin on Saturday, Governor Nathan Deal said. The storm comes two weeks after Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, claiming around 60 lives and causing property damage estimated at as much as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

Irma ravaged a series of small islands in the northeast Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

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

Throughout the islands in Irma’s wake, stunned locals tried to comprehend the devastation as they were getting ready for another major hurricane, Jose, a Category 3 due to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday.

A storm batters as Hurricane Irma descends on Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in this still image taken from September 7, 2017 social media video. MANDATORY CREDIT Aneesa Khan/via REUTERS

A storm batters as Hurricane Irma descends on Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in this still image taken from September 7, 2017 social media video. MANDATORY CREDIT Aneesa Khan/via REUTERS

DEATHS RISE

The death toll from the storm has risen as emergency services got access to remote areas pummeled by heavy winds and rain. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Friday that nine people were killed and at least seven were missing after the hurricane crashed into France’s Caribbean islands of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy.

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

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

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

On Barbuda one person died and the eastern Caribbean island was reduced “to rubble,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said. In the British overseas territory of Anguilla, another person was killed and the hospital and airport were damaged, emergency service officials said.

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

The storm passed just to the north of the island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, causing damage to roofs, flooding and power outages as it approached the impoverished Haitian side, but did not make landfall there..

Cuba evacuated some of the 51,000 tourists visiting the island, particularly 36,000 people at resorts on the northern coast. In Caibarien, a coastal town in the hurricane’s predicted path, residents headed farther inland.

Irma is the strongest hurricane recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years, according to the NHC.

(For a graphic on historical perspective of Irma, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/STORM-HARVEY/010050K2197/index.html)

(Reporting by Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Bate Felix and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Dan Flynn; Editing by Larry King and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Hurricane Irma threatens power losses for millions in Florida

Hurricane Irma threatens power losses for millions in Florida

By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – Hurricane Irma poses a bigger menace to power supplies in Florida than Hurricane Harvey did in Texas because Irma is packing near 200 mile-per-hour winds (320 km/h) that could down power lines, close nuclear plants and threats to leave millions of homes and businesses in the dark for weeks.

Irma’s winds rival the strongest for any hurricane in history in the Atlantic, whereas Harvey’s damage came from record rainfall. Even as Houston flooded, the power stayed on for most, allowing citizens to use TV and radio to stay apprised of danger, or social media to call for help.

“When Harvey made landfall in Texas it made it fully inland and weakened pretty quickly. Irma, however, could retain much of its strength,” said Jason Setree, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group.

Irma has killed several people and devastated islands in the Caribbean.

Current forecasts put almost the entirety of the Florida peninsula in the path of the storm, which made landfall in the Caribbean with wind speeds of 185 mph (295 km/h).

The threat of the Category 5 storm, at the top of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, is grave enough that electricity generator Florida Power & Light (FPL) plans to shut its two nuclear power plants in the state, and officials warned that it may have to rebuild parts of its power system, which could take weeks.

Most Florida residents have not experienced a major storm since 2005, when total outages peaked around 3.6 million during Hurricane Wilma. Some of those outages lasted for weeks.

Setree compared the projected path of Irma to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which knocked out power to about 1.2 million FPL customers in October.

FPL, a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc, restored service to most customers affected by Matthew in just two days. But FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said: “With a storm as powerful as Irma, we want customers to prepare for damage to our infrastructure and potentially prolonged power outages.”

He said it was too soon to speculate on the number and location of customers Irma could affect.

In a statement this week, FPL estimated about half of its near five million customers – particularly in the trio of populous southeast counties Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward – had not experienced a major hurricane since 2005.

“Should Irma’s worst fears be realized, our crews will likely have to completely rebuild parts of our electric system. Restoring power through repairs is measured in days; rebuilding our electric system could be measured in weeks,” FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy said.

FPL, Florida’s biggest power provider, said it had invested nearly $3 billion since 2006 to strengthen its grid, including placing 60 main power lines underground and installing nearly five million smart meters and other devices.

Other publicly traded utilities in the Sunshine State, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, said in statements that they had also invested in intelligent, self-healing devices.

Smart meters allow utilities to see outages as they occur, rather than waiting on customer calls, and utilities also use automated devices that can reenergize lines without damage that were taken offline because of contact with trees or other objects, said Jay Apt, director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center in Pittsburgh.

Olivia Ross, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the greater Houston area, said these devices helped the utility keep the lights on for more people in the aftermath of Harvey as some issues were resolved remotely.

But such devices can only do so much. Harvey’s outages were limited to 312,000 customers, of which CenterPoint was responsible for about 109,000, as it quickly lost force after landfall and turned into a tropical storm. By contrast, Ross noted, Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused 2.1 million of CenterPoint’s customers to lose power when it hit the Texas coast near Houston.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Richard Chang)

Hurricane Irma kills 10, may hit Florida Sunday as Category 4

The aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin.

By Jorge Pineda

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma plowed past the Dominican Republic toward Haiti on Thursday after devastating a string of Caribbean islands and killing at least 10 people as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida.

With winds of around 175 mph (290 kph), the storm lashed several small islands in the northeast Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British Virgin Islands, tearing down trees, flattening homes and causing widespread damage.

The eye of the hurricane did not directly hit Puerto Rico, passing north early Thursday, battering the U.S. territory with high winds and heavy rains. Three people were killed and around two-thirds of the population lost their electricity, Governor Ricardo Rossello said.

The eye of Irma was moving west-northwest off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, heading slightly north of Haiti, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund warned that millions of children could be at risk in the two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola. Impoverished Haiti has been particularly vulnerable to hurricanes and heavy rains.

Irma’s eye was forecast to pass over the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory, and the Bahamas before moving towards Cuba’s keys.

Irma will likely hit Florida as a very powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, with storm surges and flooding beginning within the next 48 hours, according to the NHC. Gas shortages in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area worsened on Thursday, with sales up to five times the norm.

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

“Canada decided … to evacuate all the Canadian tourists in the country,” said Cuban Tourism Minster Manuel Marrero, estimating they made up 60 percent of tourists in the country’s keys.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic ordered evacuations in towns along the northern Atlantic coast such as Cabarete, a thriving tourist spot where trees were brought down by high winds but no severe damage was reported.

“There is a lot of wind and rain,” Puerto Plata Assistant District Attorney Juan Carlos Castro Hernandez told Reuters by telephone. “We expect things to get worse.”

Cabarete was expected to bear the brunt of the hurricane’s winds and storm surge. Hotel executive Roque Alvarez said most tourists left prior to the storm, either flown or bused out.

A woman walks through a flooded street as Hurricane Irma moves off from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

A woman walks through a flooded street as Hurricane Irma moves off from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

“ENORMOUS DISASTER”

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe lowered the death toll, saying four bodies were recovered on the tiny French-Dutch island of St. Martin, which was hit hard. Earlier, in the confusion surrounding Irma, France’s interior minister had said eight people were killed and nearly two dozen injured.

“It is an enormous disaster. Ninety-five percent of the island is destroyed. I am in shock,” Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on St. Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

Television footage from the island showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to coordinate an emergency humanitarian response.

Amid criticism from many residents that the British government could have done more to help its territories, Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said a Royal Navy ship would reach the affected islands on Thursday with tents, vehicles and other relief equipment.

“Anguilla received the hurricane’s full blast. The initial assessment is that the damage has been severe and in places critical,” he told parliament.

One person was killed on the island and roads were blocked, with damage to the hospital and airport, power and phone service, Anguilla emergency service officials said.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said she was “shocked and saddened” by the reports of Caribbean devastation.

In Puerto Rico, Rossello said it was to early to estimate the cost of the damage. The streets of the capital San Juan were littered with downed tree limbs and signs, with many street lights out.

Juan Pablo Aleman, a restaurant owner, said he had ridden out the storm in his 11th-floor apartment.

“The building moved, shook a few times. A lot of shingles came off and some windows broke,” he told Reuters. “If it had gone a little more to the south, it would have been catastrophic.”

The first bands of rain and wind began to lash Haiti’s normally bustling northern port city of Cap Haitien on Thursday.

Authorities went door to door, encouraging people to evacuate voluntarily from exposed areas, said Albert Moulion, a Ministry of the Interior spokesman.

“We’re asking all those living in areas at risk to leave their homes. If you don’t, you’ll be evacuated by force,” President Jovenel Moise said. “When you go to shelters you’ll find food, you’ll have something to sleep on.”

Irma was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years, according to the NHC.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said it was unclear whether Irma would hit the state’s east or west coast but told residents to beware of the sea surge caused by powerful winds.

“The storm surge can kill you,” Scott said on the “CBS This Morning” program on Thursday. He urged people to heed local officials and be ready when the call came to leave their area, promising the government would provide transportation to those who need it.

The aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin. Netherlands Ministry of Defense/via REUTERS

The aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin. Netherlands Ministry of Defense/via REUTERS

“YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN”

With Irma set to become the second hurricane to hit the United States in as many weeks, Florida emergency management officials began evacuations, ordering tourists to leave the Florida Keys.

Roman Gastesi, the administrator of Monroe County, which encompasses the Florida Keys, told CNN that streets were empty in Key West and 90 percent of businesses were closed. County officials, including police and emergency workers, would be leaving, he said.

“If you’re going to stay, you’re on your own,” Gastesi said.

U.S. President Donald Trump was monitoring Irma’s progress. The president owns the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump approved emergency declarations for the state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts.

The island of Barbuda, one of the first hit by the storm, was reduced to “literally rubble,” said Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, adding that one person was killed and that the tiny two-island nation will seek international assistance.

Browne told the BBC that about half of Barbuda’s population of some 1,800 were homeless while nine out of 10 buildings had suffered some damage and many were destroyed.

“It was easily one of the most emotionally painful experiences that I have had,” Browne said in an interview on BBC Radio Four, adding that it would take months or years to restore some level of normalcy to the island.

A surfer was also reported killed in Barbados.

Two other hurricanes formed on Wednesday.

Katia in the Gulf of Mexico posed no threat to the United States, according to U.S. forecasters. Hurricane Jose was about 815 miles (1,310 km) east of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles islands, and could eventually threaten the U.S. mainland.

The storm activity comes after Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage estimated to be as much as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

(For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gcckz5)

(Reporting by Scott Malone in San Juan, Jorge Pinedo in Santo Domingo, Makini Brice in Cap Hatien, Guy Delva in Port au Prince, Sarah Marsh in Havana, Susan Heavey and Ian Simpson in Washington, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Estelle Shirbon in London, Matthias Blamont and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Writing by Daniel Flynn and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Jeffrey Benkoe)