“It’s A Killer” – Florida Orders A Third Of The Population To Evacuate As Irma Hurtles Toward Tampa
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sep 9, 2017
Florida’s highways and backroads are clogged with motorists after Gov. Rick Scott has ordered Meanwhile, Miami, along with an unprecedented 6.2 million residents of central and southern Florida to evacuate. many towns and cities along the state’s southeastern coast, resembles a ghost town, according to the New York Post.
To recap: The category 4 storm has already carved a path of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving 90% or Barbuda uninhabitable and nearly a million people without power in Puerto Rico. And now, with the storm’s outer bands already battering the southern part of the state, meteorologists are saying Irma has suddenly shifted westward and is now heading toward Florida’s Gulf Coast – specifically, the Tampa Bay area.
Forecasters expect Irma’s core to come ashore Sunday and strike the Keys, southwestern Florida and the Tampa Bay region, which hasn’t felt a major hurricane since 1921. The eye is expected to miss heavily-populated Miami, but that area will still get life-threatening hurricane conditions even without a direct hit, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
Irma weakened slightly to Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph) on Saturday, but it was expected to pick up strength again as it closes in on Florida.
Damaging winds bombarded Key Biscayne and Coral Gables on Saturday morning with gusts of up to 56 mph (90 kph) recorded at Virginia Key, near Miami, according to the National Weather Service.
It’s not just the wind that is deadly, the storm surge could well be life-threatening too…
The Rest…HERE
