After days of preparations and evacuations from Florida, Hurricane Irma blasted its way into the Sunshine State Sunday morning, making its initial landfall at Cudjoe Key shortly after 9 a.m. before continuing to head up the western side of the peninsula.
Though earlier listed as a Category 4 on Sunday, the intensity was downgraded to Category 2, as the National Hurricane Center in Miami indicated the maximum sustained winds were at 110 mph, with higher gusts reported.
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About 3.7 million Floridians were without electricity Sunday statewide, and officials said it would take weeks to fully restore power.
President Donald Trump declared a major disaster in the state of Florida, making federal aid available to people affected by Irma in nine counties already suffering the impact of Irma.
The help includes temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans for uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover in the counties of Charlotte, Collier, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Pinellas, and Sarasota.
“Today is going to the be the long day,” said Mark DeMaria, deputy acting director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The hurricane center warns that Irma has created an “imminent danger of life-threatening storm surge flooding along much of the Florida west coast.”
“We are about to get punched in the face by this storm. We need to be prepared,” Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn posted on Twitter. “We know we are ground zero for this storm. We have avoided it for 90 years but our time has come to be ready.”
“Tonight, I’m sweating. Tonight I’m scared to death,” 60-year-old Carol Walterson Stroud told the Tampa Bay Times, as she sought refuge in a senior center in Florida’s southernmost city with her husband, granddaughter and dog Saturday night.
Previous to its arrival in Florida, Irma was at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, with top wind speed of 185 mph, and the system killed more than 20 people across the Caribbean.
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Many Floridians were keeping a sharp eye on the forecast track for the storm, as they weighed whether they should evacuate their homes, with many gasoline stations having no fuel and slow traffic on the main highways leaving the state.
“For five days, we were told it was going to be on the east coast, and then 24 hours before it hits, we’re now told it’s coming up the west coast,” Jeff Beerbohm, a 52-year-old entrepreneur in St. Petersburg, told the Tampa Bay Times. “As usual, the weatherman, I don’t know why they’re paid.”
See where Hurricane Irma is right now.
The following are livestreams of Hurricane Irma coverage:
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