Hurricane Irma 2017 Latest Update: Buildings Sway in High Winds as Florida Goes Dark
Hurricane Irma, despite having weakened past its transit over Cuba, still has enough power to slam Florida's Gulf Coast with sheets of rain and surging winds. The Category 3 tropical cyclone made landfall on Sunday, Sep. 10, at about 3:35 p.m. EDT, after ripping through the resort islands of the Florida Keys.
Maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour caused skyscrapers and hotel buildings to sway, even as Irma was downgraded from the Category 4 storm that left Cuba devastated at the start of the weekend.
Deme Lomas, the owner of Niu Kitchen in Miami, watched as gusts of wind dismantled a crane from its perch on the top of a building. "We feel the building swaying all the time," he said by phone to Reuters, relaying his view from the 35th floor of his apartment tower.
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"It's like being on a ship," he added. Later on, there would not be much to see as the surging rains and floods carry on into the evening. More than 2.6 million homes and businesses go dark as power is cut off across the state.
The number of dead reported as the cyclone rips through to Florida from the Caribbean added up to 29 by Sunday, with the latest victim found in the town of Marathon in the Florida Keys. The man was found dead in a pickup truck that crashed into a tree, possibly led off-course by the storm's gusts of wind.
The latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surges "Expected in areas of onshore winds along the Florida west coast." A Storm Surge warning has officially been instated from the South Santee River to Jupiter Inlet, North Miami Beach to the Ochlockonee River, the Florida Keys, and Tampa Bay.
The Caribbean saw scenes of catastrophic destruction, a preview of what Florida faces as the onslaught brought about by Hurricane Irma continues, as shown in the video below.
