Culture

Irma Brings Record Flooding To Jacksonville And Charleston After Killing At Least 10 In The U.S.

On Monday, former Hurricane Irma downgraded into a tropical storm after slamming the Keys and Gulf Coast on Sunday. However, and as National Security Adviser Tom Bossert discussed in the day’s press briefing, the system’s effects are currently playing out like a Category 3 hurricane in Jacksonville, Florida. The northern Florida city is seeing a record storm surge in the streets, which can be seen in the above CNN clip. Around 880,000 residents make their home in Jacksonville, which is about 400 miles above where Irma first made landfall, but the flooding effects are more devastating than what was already seen in Miami.

As NBC News reports, there’s a “trifecta effect” ongoing after 10 inches of rain in Jacksonville, combined with winds pushing more water into the city’s rivers, which have already seen a storm surge “four to six feet above normal high-tide levels.” And the effect will worsen once high tide actually occurs on Monday afternoon. No deaths have occurred so far in Jacksonville, but the situation could grow more dire as the day progresses.

ABC News reports Irma’s U.S. death total at ten people — six throughout Florida, three in Georgia, and one in South Carolina. This number arrives in addition to the Caribbean death toll, which is now approaching forty (including ten people in Cuba). The number could grow both in the Caribbean and the U.S., but the number is obviously more likely to grow in the U.S. with many areas, including Charleston, South Carolina, seeing severe flooding.

The National Weather Service has advised Charleston residents not to travel, lest they be swept up in dangerous flash floods. This video shows what the city’s downtown area looks like right now.

As with Jacksonville, the flooding will increase at high tide. In this CNN clip, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg describes the situation in the bluntest of terms: “We’ve got a lot of water here.”

(Via CNN, NBC News, ABC News & National Weather Service)