Deadly Irma batters Florida with high winds, heavy rain

By Robin Respaut and Andy Sullivan

 

A car drives along an empty highway in Miami before the arrival of Hurricane Irma to south Florida, September 9, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

 

FORT MYERS/MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Irma bore down on southern Florida on Sunday with 130 mile-per-hour (210 kph) winds, flooding Miami streets and knocking out power to more than 1.6 million homes and businesses.

 

Even before it came ashore, Florida was feeling Irma's fury with at least one man killed, a woman forced to deliver her own baby and trees and apartment towers swaying in high winds.

 

The storm was one of the most powerful ever seen in the Atlantic and has already killed two dozen people in the Caribbean and pummeled Cuba with 36-foot (11 meter) waves on Sunday. Its core was located about 50 miles (105 km) south of Naples by midday.

 

Some 6.5 million people, about a third of the state's population, had been ordered to evacuate southern Florida.

 

Officials warned that Irma's heavy storm surge - seawater driven on land by high winds - could bring floods of up to 15 feet (4.6 m) along the state's western Gulf Coast. It submerged the highway that connects the isolated Florida Keys archipelago with the mainland and small whitecapped waves could be seen in flooded streets between Miami office towers.

 

"There is a serious threat of significant storm surge flooding along the entire west coast of Florida," Governor Rick Scott told a press conference. "This is a life-threatening situation."

 

Irma is expected to cause billions of dollars in damage to the third-most-populous U.S. state, a major tourism hub with an economy comprising about 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

 

At least 1.6 million Florida homes and businesses had lost power, according to Florida Power & Light and other utilities.

 

The National Hurricane Center forecast that its center eye will move near or over the state's west coast later on Sunday.

 

The count of people killed by the storm in the Caribbean rose to 24 on Sunday with two new deaths reported on the Dutch portion of Saint Martin. Irma has already claimed at least one life in Florida, after a man's body was pulled from his pickup truck, which had crashed into a tree in high winds.

 

MIAMI BUILDINGS SWAY, STREETS FLOODED

 

The storm winds downed a construction crane and shook tall buildings in Miami, which was about 95 miles (153 km) from Irma's core.

 

Deme Lomas, who owns Miami restaurant Niu Kitchen, said he saw a crane torn apart by winds and dangling from the top of the building.

 

"We couldn't hear it come down because of the loud wind, but when we just took a look it was pulled apart into a mess," Lomas said in a phone interview from his 35th-floor apartment. "We feel the building swaying all the time ... It's like being on a ship."

 

Miami streets were flooded as the water crept up on and around Brickell Avenue, which runs around 550 feet (168 m)from the waterfront through the city's financial district and newly built high rises.

 

"There's water everywhere," said Chaim Lipskar, rabbi at the Rok Family Shul that is sheltering a few families through the storm. "It's up and down Brickell and all over the side streets."

 

South Florida's large population of elderly residents posed a severe test for the emergency shelters, many of which were not equipped for people with elaborate medical needs.

 

Irma is now a Category 4 storm, the second-highest designation on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

 

One woman in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood delivered her own baby, with medical personnel coaching her on the phone because emergency responders were not able to reach her, the city of Miami said on Twitter. The two are now at the hospital, it said.

 

Irma comes just days after Hurricane Harvey dumped record-setting rain in Texas, causing unprecedented flooding, killing at least 60 people and leaving an estimated $180 billion in property damage in its wake. Almost three months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through November.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to the governors of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee on Sunday and issued a disaster declaration for Puerto Rico, which was hit by the storm last week, the White House said.

 

(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh in Remedios, Marc Frank in Havana, Bernie Woodall, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Jeff Mason in Washington, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Ross Colvin and Andrew Hay)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-09-11

The next big storm news will be about how the insurance companies are screwing these people by not paying or under paying. 

 Biggest hazard in these events is the gangs of looters, often armed and dangerous, normally high on cheap stimulants. South Florida for some reason is a magnet to these types. Most enjoyable reading reports of homeowners using ..ahem.. reasonable force to repel these lowlifes. 

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by FreddieRoyle

31 minutes ago, FreddieRoyle said:

 Biggest hazard in these events is the gangs of looters, often armed and dangerous, normally high on cheap stimulants. South Florida for some reason is a magnet to these types. Most enjoyable reading reports of homeowners using ..ahem.. reasonable force to repel these lowlifes. 

What a load of tosh.   Most looters don't bother houses.   Many houses are destroyed or flooded.   

 

The National Guard is mobilized and there is a curfew.   

All 9 of the looters are now in jail.  The police do a fantastic job controlling this type of behavior.  Can you say the same for your location?  Appears not...

https://www.local10.com/weather/hurricane-irma/looters-caught-by-local-10-cameras-arrested-by-fort-lauderdale-police

 

4 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

 Biggest hazard in these events is the gangs of looters, often armed and dangerous, normally high on cheap stimulants. South Florida for some reason is a magnet to these types.

 

Yes. It was pretty bad during Katrina as well.

No evidence that they were "normally high on cheap stimulants" 'tho.

 

Can't blame folks who didn't get out and need water, food, camping gear and necessities, but flat screen televisions and the like?  They're just taking the piss.

Twitter Reacts After Trump’s Social Media Director Shares Hoax Hurricane Irma Video

 

"The White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino Jr. tweeted a video to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence claiming that it showed the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Miami International Airport."

 

"As it turns out, the video was actually recorded days before Hurricane Irma even made landfall in Florida and hence,

could not have been of Miami airport."

http://www.ibtimes.com/twitter-reacts-after-trumps-social-media-director-shares-hoax-hurricane-irma-video-2588267

 

Mexico City:

(The flag of Mexico is clearly visible in the video)

 

Another example of those "Best people" working for the White House...

8 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

 Biggest hazard in these events is the gangs of looters, often armed and dangerous, normally high on cheap stimulants. South Florida for some reason is a magnet to these types. Most enjoyable reading reports of homeowners using ..ahem.. reasonable force to repel these lowlifes. 

Could you please share links to these reports of homeowners repelling these "lowlifes."? I would love to see them, too but so far haven't been able to find any. I'm sure you wouldn't be making this up.

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by ilostmypassword

I think one thing we can all agree about is the need for hardening our infrastructure so that when disaster strikes these locales again, the damage will be minimized.

Trump administration ends Obama-era plan to fortify homes in flood zones

The Trump administration has quietly killed off rules proposed under Barack Obama’s presidency that would have required much tougher flood resiliency in thousands of new and rebuilt homes within flood zones, the Daily News has learned.

The termination of the proposed rule “was terrible,” said Dan Zarrilli, Mayor de Blasio’s chief resilience officer and the official in charge of leading the city’s post-Superstorm Sandy recovery.

As a result, Zarrilli predicted, the thousands of homeowners deluged by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma will be allowed to rebuild in the same spots where they were flooded without any added resiliency.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-ends-obama-era-plan-fortify-homes-flood-zones-article-1.3485660

Oops!  Spoke too soon.

9 hours ago, FreddieRoyle said:

 Biggest hazard in these events is the gangs of looters, often armed and dangerous, normally high on cheap stimulants. South Florida for some reason is a magnet to these types. Most enjoyable reading reports of homeowners using ..ahem.. reasonable force to repel these lowlifes. 

No, that is not the biggest hazard with strong hurricanes. But clearly a good chance for some people to infect the world with more inflammatory "white resentment" political rhetoric as is the fashion due to the current potus that got elected based on that. 

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by Jingthing

 

Eye of Irma

 

 

 

Eye of Pig

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes of Trump

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by Scott
off-topic images removed.

12 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

I think one thing we can all agree about is the need for hardening our infrastructure so that when disaster strikes these locales again, the damage will be minimized.

Trump administration ends Obama-era plan to fortify homes in flood zones

The Trump administration has quietly killed off rules proposed under Barack Obama’s presidency that would have required much tougher flood resiliency in thousands of new and rebuilt homes within flood zones, the Daily News has learned.

The termination of the proposed rule “was terrible,” said Dan Zarrilli, Mayor de Blasio’s chief resilience officer and the official in charge of leading the city’s post-Superstorm Sandy recovery.

As a result, Zarrilli predicted, the thousands of homeowners deluged by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma will be allowed to rebuild in the same spots where they were flooded without any added resiliency.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-ends-obama-era-plan-fortify-homes-flood-zones-article-1.3485660

Oops!  Spoke too soon.

 

"Proposed rules"- in other words, even they realize Obama's Executive Order was meaningless. Essentially, it said people should be careful when building in disaster-prone areas. Wow. Impressive. To a complete idiot, perhaps. Ah, I just figured out.... never mind.

Off-topic post removed.

 

The topic isn't about looting or whatever other nonsense strikes you.  

 

Continue and you will be suspended.

 

FINAL WARNING.

 

2 hours ago, MajarTheLion said:

 

"Proposed rules"- in other words, even they realize Obama's Executive Order was meaningless. Essentially, it said people should be careful when building in disaster-prone areas. Wow. Impressive. To a complete idiot, perhaps. Ah, I just figured out.... never mind.

Such ignorance. If there's one thing Republicans and Democrats agree with about Obama's order: it would increase the cost of construction projects. They differ by how much and potential savings down the road but they do agree that it would have an effect. 

 

"Representative Ralph Abraham of Louisiana, a Republican who sponsored legislation that would have blocked Mr. Obama’s flood standard, said he was thrilled by Mr. Trump’s decision...He estimated the rule would have increased the cost of a new home by 25 percent to 30 percent in Louisiana because most of the state would be put in a federal flood plain.

The Obama administration had estimated that the more stringent standards would increase construction costs by 0.25 percent to 1.25 percent, but save taxpayers money in the long run."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/climate/flooding-infrastructure-climate-change-trump-obama.html

 

As for the source you cited, it being yourself, I'll be merciful and pass over it without comment.