“It’s A Killer” – Florida Orders A Third Of The Population To Evacuate As Irma Hurtles Toward Tampa
Florida’s highways and backroads are clogged with motorists after Gov. Rick Scott has ordered an unprecedented 6.2 million residents of central and southern Florida to evacuate. Meanwhile, Miami, along with many towns and cities along the state’s southeastern coast, resembles a ghost town, according to the New York Post.
To recap: The category 4 storm has already carved a path of destruction through the Caribbean, leaving 90% or Barbuda uninhabitable and nearly a million people without power in Puerto Rico. And now, with the storm’s outer bands already battering the southern part of the state, meteorologists are saying Irma has suddenly shifted westward and is now heading toward Florida’s Gulf Coast – specifically, the Tampa Bay area.
Here’s the Associated Press:
Forecasters expect Irma’s core to come ashore Sunday and strike the Keys, southwestern Florida and the Tampa Bay region, which hasn’t felt a major hurricane since 1921. The eye is expected to miss heavily-populated Miami, which may have dodged a bubble in the last minute, but that area will still get life-threatening hurricane conditions even without a direct hit, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
LATEST: #Irma currently Cat. 3 Hurricane with winds of 125 mph; expected to restrengthen as it heads towards Florida http://abcn.ws/2xcR82b pic.twitter.com/6MStKhvII4
MORE: #Irma 175 miles SE of Key West, FL, moving west at 9 mph; expected head up western coast of Florida. http://abcn.ws/2xcR82b pic.twitter.com/b6XtIF92YI
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