.png)
About 1.8 million homes and businesses went out of power today as the powerful Hurricane Irma flooded the streets of the currently ghost town, Miami's.
Around 5.6 million people, a third of the state’s population, had been ordered to evacuate southern Florida.
“There is a serious threat of significant storm surge flooding along the entire west coast of Florida. This is a deadly storm, a life-threatening situation.” Governor Rick Scott told a press conference.
Irma, the most powerful hurricanes ever seen in the Atlantic, started early on Wednesday, September 6th, hitting Caribbean islands as Category 5 storm with packing winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour). On Sunday morning, September 10th, the storm dropped down to Category 3 hitting southern Florida with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph).
Tornadoes are also spotted through the region.
Irma has killed, until now, 28 people in the Caribbean and one man in southern Florida. The storm have destroyed thousands of homes and business buildings and is expected to cause billions of dollars in damage to the third-most-populous U.S. state, a major tourism hub with an economy that generates about 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
The National Hurricane Center forecast that Irma’s center eye will move near or over the state’s west coast later on Sunday.
