Hurricane Irma: 6.5 million in Florida lose power, thousands sheltered

Night-time curfews have been imposed in areas such as Miami, where 13 people were arrested on suspicion of looting.

The Category 5 storm, which had maximum sustained winds of 175mph, moved past the northern coast of Puerto Rico and over the Dominican Republic and Haiti, ABC News reported. In the Atlanta metro area, about 496 stations, or 12.2%, were out of gasoline, according to the information service Gas Buddy.

Flights are due to resume Tuesday morning, though the airport expects only about 30% of its normal schedule of 400 daily flights.

The hurricane center is forecasting that storm surge could be the most dramatic in the Miami area and in Collier, Monroe and Lee counties, all of which could see surge higher than 9 feet above ground.

Those islands have had massive power outages, but search-and-rescue operations had to wait out Hurricane Jose before they could begin recovery efforts there, Brock Long, FEMA director, said on ABC’s “This Week”.

Irma made landfall on Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm at Cudjoe Key, about 75 miles from Key Largo, where the NBC 6 helicopter was flying.

Florida began allowing some residents to return to homes hammered by Hurricane Irma on Tuesday (Sept 12), but officials warned that it would take a long time to fix the damage wrought by high winds and pounding surf, particularly in the Keys archipelago.

Hurricane Irma-now a tropical depression-slammed Florida and other parts of the southern United States.

“I want everybody to understand the importance of this”.

Trump has offered the full resources of the federal government to Florida and the affected states. “This could be worse”.

The storm “seriously” damaged the center of the island with winds up to 256 kilometers (159 miles) per hour, according to Cuban state media. You know, you’re going to get the wind and the rain on the east coast, but right now, it’s impacting the Keys.

“So when you refuse to evacuate when a mandatory order has been issued, you have said you’re going to do it on your own”, he said.

Forecasters say it kills more people than the strong winds.

Tropical-storm-force winds remain the most unsafe and severe possible impact from this storm, experts say.

Clearing roads: The main concern is the roads, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said, as thousands of trees are down.

A auto sits abandoned in storm surge along North Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

Evacuees are being encouraged to travel to north Georgia for shelter, since south Georgia shelters may need to be available for local residents.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has already declared a state emergency for all 159 counties as Irma barrels toward the state.