Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated 5.30pm
HURRICANE IRMA HAS weakened to a Category 3 storm, but US forecasters said it will likely regain power as it heads to the US state of Florida.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre downgraded the storm from a Category 4, but cautioned that Irma is “forecast to restrengthen while heading for south Florida and the keys”.
More than 6.3 million people have been ordered to evacuate Florida, as the fierce storm heads towards the State, packing powerful winds of 249 kilometres per hour.
“Some fluctuations in intensity are likely during the next day or two, but Irma is expected to remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida,” the NHC said in its latest public advisory.
Irma is expected to strike the Florida Keys late Saturday and Sunday before moving inland, and many residents have joined a mass exodus amid increasingly dire alerts to leave the State.
The hurricane made landfall in Cuba earlier, leaving a trail of death and destruction on a string of Caribbean islands.
The monster storm had made landfall on the island’s Camaguey Archipelago in the early hours of the morning Irish time, with the eye of the storm just 190 kilometres east-southeast of the Cuban city of Caibarien.
A team of Met officers from the UK are being deployed to the British Virgin Islands today to assist in the policing response to Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean.
The team, comprising one inspector, two sergeants and 14 constables will board a military flight from Brize Norton to Barbados and from there will be deployed to provide policing support to the British Virgin Islands Police Force.
About 6.3 million people in Florida — more than one-quarter of the state’s population — have been ordered to leave, and another 540,000 have been ordered out on the Georgia coast.
Authorities in the US have opened hundreds of shelters for people who choose not to leave. Hotels as far away as Atlanta have filled up with evacuees.
“If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk,” Florida Governor Rick Scott said.
The governor urged everybody in the Keys, where forecasters expect the storm to hit first, to get out.
Irma killed at least 20 people in the Caribbean and left thousands homeless as it devastated small resort islands.
In Florida, petrol shortages and gridlock plagued the evacuations, turning normally simple trips into tests of will.
Parts of interstates 75 and 95 north were bumper-to-bumper, while very few cars drove in the southbound lanes.
To the east of Irma, meanwhile, Hurricane Jose, a Category 4 storm, is following behind, threatening further damage.
- Reporting from AFP and Associated Press
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Best wishes to all Cubans caught in the middle of this CAT5 storm. Hopefully the damage is minimal. Unlikely but hopeful.
@Peter Cavey: aw that’s nice Pedro but I’d doubt they’re reading this article at the minute
@Jamie: get out of bed on the wrong side this morning Jamie? Glad I’m not in your company this weekend.
@Aidan Mitchell: im great craic
@Jamie: clearly!
@Peter Cavey: Are you including the dictatorship?
@Deborah Behan: the ladies love me
@Jamie: A great crack, between the ears and you’re sitting on it.
RTE news last night focussed almost exclusively on Florida’s preparations, the countries already destroyed almost beyond repair hardly got a mention.
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: Shacks vs Condos, even accounting for accessibility we all know the media bias.
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: To be fair to RTE they did cover the 499 killed in Sierra Leone before those rainstorms crossed the Atlantic to form Harvey, and they did cover the 1200 killed by the Monsoons in the east around the same time. I did not see the news last light so cannot comment on that – but RTE are not the worst – but I do agree that we need to change the culture, a life is a life in Florida, Cuba, Mexico and India… and we also need rethink our coverage of terrorists attacks which tend to focus on Europe and the USA and the same concept, a life is a life in Libya, Syria, Iran or elsewhere.
one could go on about news coverage – but RTE are not the worst.
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: Perhaps that’s because many thousands of Irish people have family in Florida but only a handful in Cuba and elsewhere.
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: Because if they say this is happening in America it brings more views and interest as people here in Ireland don’t care as much about Cuba or any other country for that matter.
If the plausible hypothesis of anthropgenically caused global warming is valid, then extreme weather events show its disruptive and destructive future effect.
The precautionary principle suggests that it would be sensible and prudent to take radical and determined avoidance measures in case the hypothesis is valid.
The denial of anthropogenic global warming seems implausible. Deniers seems to be ideologically motivated and not objective. It would be unwise to rely on the self serving predictions of such persons.
We can now see thecdram of extreme weather events, which likely have been made more destructive by increased ocean temperatures.
Do we still want to keep gambling with the future of humanity on this increasingly ecosystem stressed planet from a human habitation perspective.
7 billion people with the amplifying effect of various industrial, agricultural and transport technologies have the capacity to imbalance a highly complex and fragile weather system which has no fail,safes build it.
We are getting warnings, yellow cards. It does not make sense to continue to ignore the warnings.
On the other hand, the future of alternative energies is to reduce dependence on oil supplies from increasingly politically volatile countries. There are a lot of positives in alternative energy.
Carbon based fuels are old technology for a more primitive time.
It is time to look forward and embrace new means of energy production and utilisation.
@Fiona deFreyne: What?
@Fiona deFreyne: if these are the warnings how bad could this become? Could this be a yearly fixture? If so that could make the region uninhabitable which is incredible. We need to really start to look at less carbon impact living.
@Fiona deFreyne: how do you manage to get away with over 800!!!!?
@Fiona deFreyne: you’ve outdone yourself Tony..
@Fiona deFreyne: sorry you lost me at anthropogenically
@Fiona deFreyne: do something about yr own wind before saving the world…
@Fiona deFreyne: ah Fiona, some of these words are way too big to understand. :(
the journal feeding another hurricane story. There’s other stuff happening in other parts of the world.
@6ljJQRRU: like what James ? This is the worst storm in the worlds history !
@6ljJQRRU: our concern should be for all who face disaster. Theses storms are reckoned to be the strongest in many years so of course we hearing a lot about them. Your comment sounds like you grudge the people of the Caribbean our immediate concern and support.
@baz newham: no it isn’t. it’s the worst storm generated in the Atlantic basin.
@baz newham: but that history only goes back to 1978 when the hall of records was mysteriously blown away
@Eoghan O’Sullivan: o god whatever like ! It’s pretty bad anyway
@6ljJQRRU: a news piece about 5.6m people being evacuated in a first-world country, with an imminent cat5 hurricane, is going to make the news here. Just take shelter in other local news apps until it passes!
@6ljJQRRU: This storm is affecting millions and is the worst in recorded history and another huge symptom of climate change which is being denied by the leader of the most populated country the storm is likely to affect. STFU with your whataboutery.
@6ljJQRRU: As one of the tens of thousands of Irish people who have family in the south-eastern states, I beg to differ.
Trump’s scientists say the storm would be even worse if the atmosphere contained less greenhouse gases as they help slow down the wind. As yet no mainstream scientist has been able to disprove this claim with 100% certainty.
@alphanautica:
“Trump’s scientists” The perfect oxymoron…
@alphanautica: It’s the water doing the damage in places like the US and hot air carries more water and hence more floods.
Fu(k, heard yesterday that it was downgraded t CAT4. False hope obviously. Thoughts are with the victims.
@Dave O Keeffe: Cat 3 is weaker than Cat 4. Fingers crossed it’ll continue to weaken.
Take a look at nullschool.net – global wind patterns superimposed to Google Earth
have your say