Irma is presently over Florida advancing slowly northward. Miami was flooded and the surge made streets look like rivers with boats floating alongside furniture. 2 construction cranes fell in Miami and some homes were demolished. But Miami suffered less than expected as the storm was on Florida’s west coast. The toll as of this morning was 4 deaths in Florida and 28 in the Caribbean.
The National Hurricane Center announced that Irma was downgraded to a level 2 storm last night and this morning it was further downgraded to level 1. Last night the winds were blowing the waters on the4 west coast of Florida westward out to the sea. Many boats were seen laying on a dry bay floor. Now that Irma has passed north of Tampa the surge of the winds is blowing back inland toward Tampa Bay which is experiencing rising waters presently. It’s not certain how high the waters may rise.
In Jacksonville Florida there is still the surge coming inland from the east and they have floods. In addition there were tornadoes around Florida and Jacksonville has a tornado warning in effect.
Irma caused more than 3.3 million homes and businesses in Florida to lose their electricity. The outages span all the way from the Florida Keys to central Florida. In Miami Dade county alone over a million people don’t have power. More outages are expected as the storm proceeds northward.
For the first time flood warnings were issued in Atlanta Georgia as the storm is expected to get there. Some people have evacuated. By the time it gets to Atlanta it is expected that Irma will be further downgraded to a tropical storm. But let’s not forget tropical storms can still cause a lot of damage as we’ve seen only a week ago with Harvey.
Trump declared Florida a disaster area which will enable it to get federal aid to repair the storm damage and compensation to the state for evacuation and cleaning expenses caused by the storm. The damage Irma wrought on Florida will be measured in billions of dollars not to mention the damage wrought in the Caribbean. President Trump said: “What we’re worried about right now is lives not costs.”