12 September, 2017
Irma was at one point the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with winds up to 298kph.
The storm gradually lost strength, weakening to a Category 1 hurricane overnight, the National Hurricane Center said. That risk extended to the coast of Georgia and parts of SC, the hurricane center said.
As dawn broke Monday, residents of southern Florida awoke to see what Hurricane Irma left in its wake, including flooded streets and homes, crumpled gas stations and downed trees. About 155,000 people had taken refuge in 573 shelters across the state.
Packing winds of 130 miles per hour, Hurricane Irma blasted Florida over the weekend, first making landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 storm. It had earlier barrelled through the Florida Keys, a chain of low-lying islands to the south.
Over the weekend, Irma claimed its first USA fatality - a man found dead in a pickup truck that had crashed into a tree in high winds in the town of Marathon, in the Florida Keys, local officials said.
The storm had carved a path of destruction through the Caribbean last week, where it was blamed for at least 27 deaths.
Initially, it was a category 3 hurricane but soon it fluctuated to category 5 hurricane with 185 miles per hour (296 km/hr) intensity.
The hurricane's wrath in the Sunshine State extended the full length of the state and reached from the west coast to the east. As a radar app on his phone showed Irma passing by, he had seen little more than gusty winds.
"Irma went over and we were all like, 'Oh good, we survived.' And then all of a sudden some of the panels came off the roof, I guess, and we started getting water pouring down in different places", said 61-year-old Mary Fitzgerald.
