Culture

Hurricane Irma’s Winds Are Thrashing Miami And At Least 1.4 Million Are Without Power In Florida

The core of Hurricane Irma is now battering the Florida Keys (officially making Category 4 landfall in Cudjoe Key at 9:10am) with a deadly storm surge and 90+ mph wind gusts upon. Up on the mainland, the storm’s effects are less severe (so far) with much worse to come. This CNN clip out of Miami Beach shows correspondent Kyung Lah struggling to stay upright while warning of flying projectiles, which consist of many types of debris, from coconuts to fallen street signs. It’s these winds that have already — according to the Sun-Sentinel — taken out electricity over 850,000 homes (updated: at least 1.4 million) and businesses throughout South Florida, and the number is expected to grow as Irma continues moving inland.

As Hurricane Irma’s winds, thunderstorms and tornadoes swept through South Florida, more than 852,000 homes and businesses in the tri-county region lost power, according to Florida Power & Light.

As of 8 a.m. Sunday, there were 229,973 outages in Broward, 107,232 in Palm Beach County and 532,599 in Miami-Dade. Broward outages swelled by more than 30 percent in the last hour.

The situation in Miami Beach (and other areas) is growing so dire that rescue crews will no longer respond to calls from those who chose to ride out the storm. And matters will only grow worse in the coming hours for surrounding cities. Here’s a clip of the strong rain band that will rolled into Miami — where there’s a real question of how the city’s skyscrapers will withstand the storm — around noon with 80-100 mph wind gusts.

By early afternoon, downtown Miami began to flood in this clip with CNN reporting waist-deep waters in some areas.

A construction crane also snapped, causing extensive damage to one downtown Miami building.

These videos show the Saturday night situation in Miami Beach long before Irma’s landfall was due to occur. The full damage, once calculated, will be extensive.

We will continue to provide additional coverage on Hurricane Irma as new details develop in the coming days.

(Via CNN, Five Thirty Eight & Sun-Sentinel)