Update: Florida braces for landfall
Hurricane Irma was set to make landfall in Florida on Sunday with devastating winds and life-threatening storm surges, prompting one of the largest evacuations in US history, after a destructive march up Cuba's northern coast.
The storm was about 145km southeast of Key West, Florida at midnight (8am UAE time), with maximum sustained winds near 193km/h.
Irma, which killed at least 22 people in the Caribbean, was considered a life-threatening danger to Florida as well and could inflict a natural disaster causing billions of dollars in damage to the third-most-populous US state.
Though it weakened somewhat as it clawed through Cuba, it was expected to regain strength and rip through Florida's southern archipelago on Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm, the second-highest designation on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Wind gusts near hurricane force began to batter the Florida Keys late on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
It has put out a hurricane watch and warning for almost all of the state into Georgia and South Carolina — an area where about 20 million people live.
Storm surges pushed by a high tide were forecast to be as high as 4.6m for low-lying area along the state's west coast on Sunday, which could produce catastrophic flooding for thousands of homes.
The city of Miami imposed a curfew until 7am on Sunday and more than 220,000 customers in Florida were without power on Sunday morning, utilities reported.
"This is a life-threatening situation," the centre said.
More than 2,000 flights in and out of Florida were cancelled on Saturday, according to tracking service FlightAware.com, and ground transport was scrambled by millions fleeing for safety.
Amid urgent warnings from state officials to evacuate before it was too late, downtown Miami was all but abandoned on Saturday.
Update: Winds batter Florida
Wind gusts near hurricane force were occurring in the Florida Keys, the National Hurricane Center said on Saturday in an update on Hurricane Irma.
The storm was about 170km southeast of Key West with maximum sustained winds of 205km/h, the centre said.
Irma was moving west-northwest at 15km/h.
The centre said a weather station in Vaca Key reported sustained winds of 77km/h with a gust to 106km/h.
Marathon, Florida, in the Keys reported sustained winds 81km/h with a gust to 115km/h.
On the Saffir-Simpson wind scale, sustained winds of at least 119km/h are classified as hurricane strength.
Irma tears into Cuba
Havana: Hurricane Irma weakened slightly on Saturday as it battered Cuba’s northern coast while millions of Florida residents were told to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left devastation in its wake.
Downgraded as a Category 4 storm, Irma moved along the Camaguey Archipelago with 155 mph (250km/h) winds early on Saturday, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It has shifted between the Category 4 and Category 5 classification, which is used for the most powerful storms.
Irma, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, was expected to hit Florida early on Sunday, causing major damage due to high winds and flooding to the fourth-largest US state by population.
The scenes of destruction along Cuba’s north central coast were similar to those seen in other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma barrelled in for a direct hit at Ciego de Avila province around midnight.
Choppy seas, grey skies, sheets of rain, bending palm trees, huge waves crashing over sea walls and downed power lines filled state-run television’s evening news bulletin.
Irma was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 6 feet (two metres) to parts of the island’s northern coast and the central and northwestern Bahamas.
Meteorologists warned that by early Saturday far greater devastation was sure to be caused as Irma moved westward through Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara provinces where it is forecast to turn north toward Florida.
Irma was about 245 miles (395km) south-south-east of Miami, the NHC said in its latest advisory.
‘Running out of time’
With the storm barrelling toward the United States, officials in Florida ordered an unprecedented evacuation, racing to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.
“We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen,” Governor Rick Scott told reporters.
A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 per cent of the state’s population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was “a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential” and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump’s waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.
Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion (Dh661 billion) in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.
About nine million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state’s 20.6 million residents.
Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.
Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.
The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.
As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St Martin and the British and US Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.
But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.
Jose, expected to reach the north-eastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150mph (240km/h), the NHC said.