Hurricane Irma gives Florida a coast-to-coast pummeling

“I think we’re really well coordinated, as well as you can possibly be”.

Around noon on Sunday, people started noticing that water levels in Tampa Bay area waterways were receding.

HURRICANE Irma is showing signs of weakening and could be downgraded to a tropical storm on Monday.

Clearwater Beach measured a gust of 96 miles per hour, bu high winds persisted much farther away and forecasters warned against venturing out because of a variety of hazards.

Still, Tampa Bay still is the most vulnerable in the United States to damage and flooding if a storm were to make a direct hit.

Everybody FPL has available is “already being deployed” and the company is trying to secure more workers from out of state to help, Silagy said, including some crews who were assisting in Texas after Hurricane Harvey.

FEMA Chief Brock Long said he believed the Keys and Collier County in southwest Florida took the brunt of the storm. While the projected track showed Irma raking the state’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the entire state, including the Miami metropolitan area of six million people, was in extreme peril from the monstrously wide storm.

“We are finding some remains”, Carruthers said on CNN. “Stay safe, be prepared, listen to local evacuation advisories”. “If you’re outside, get inside and shelter in place”.

Clem says the man’s wife called 911 saying he suffered a heart attack, and first responders found his body lodged between two beams on the shed’s roof with debris on top of him. St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue has also suspended emergency services due to unsafe weather conditions.

In Georgia, utilities reported over 1.1 million customers without power on Tuesday, down from a peak of around 1.3 million late Monday.

A combination of influences caused Irma to lose strength over the northern coast of Cuba and shift westward. Ten people were killed on the French island of Saint Barthélémy – known colloquially as St Barts – and on the French part of Saint Martin which it shares with the Netherlands.

Residents and holidaymakers were ordered to stay indoors until the storm had passed, with many Brits left holed up in apartments or hotel rooms.

Forecast models had anticipated Irma turning north earlier than it did, Jones said.

Irma’s threat prompted Tampa officials to order a 6 p.m. curfew for Sunday evening.

Irma flooded portions of River Street in the tourist magnet city of Savannah, Georgia, and forced police to temporarily shut Highway 80 leading to the barrier island community of Tybee Island. We’ve got roads that are impassable right now.

“The Keys I’m very concerned about, the Marco Islands area, we have a lot of concerns about that”, Scott said on Fox News. “This is what we do”.