(NBC NEWS) The most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history made its first landfall in the islands of the northeast Caribbean early Wednesday, churning along a path pointing to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti before possibly heading for Florida this weekend.
The eye of Hurricane Irma passed over Barbuda just before 2 a.m. ET, the National Weather Service said.
Irma’s sustained winds of 185 mph inched toward the highest on record: the 190-mph pummeling that Hurricane Allen gave the Caribbean, northern Mexico and southern Texas in 1980.
