JACKSONVILLE, FLA.—A weakened Irma took its parting shot at Florida on Monday, triggering severe flooding in the state’s northeastern corner, while authorities along the storm’s 643-kilometre path struggled to rush aid to victims and take the full measure of the damage.The monster hurricane that hit the Florida Keys on Sunday as a Category 4 was downgraded to a tropical storm as it finally pushed its way out of the state and into Georgia, where it caused more misery.During its rainy, windy run up the length of Florida, Irma swamped homes, uprooted trees, flooded streets, cast boats ashore, snapped miles of power lines and toppled construction cranes.“How are we going to survive from here?” asked Gwen Bush, who waded through thigh-deep floodwaters outside her Central Florida home to reach National Guard rescuers and get a ride to a shelter. “What’s going to happen now? I just don’t know.”Statewide, more than 6.7 million homes and businesses remained without power, and officials warned it could take weeks for electricity to be restored to everyone. More than 180,000 people huddled in shelters.Five deaths in Florida were blamed on Irma, along with two in Georgia. At least 34 people were killed in the Caribbean as the storm closed in on the U.S. mainland.Irma was at one point the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with winds up to 298 km/h. By late Monday afternoon, as it moved inland, its winds were down to 80 km/h.The hurricane’s wrath in the Sunshine State extended the full length of the state and reached from the west coast to the east.But because of disrupted communications and cut-off roads, the full scale of its damage was unclear, especially in the dangerously exposed Keys, which felt Irma’s full fury when the storm came shore with 209 km/h winds.Read more:Lack of help from Ottawa riles Canadians stuck in CaribbeanPhotos: Hurricane Irma leaves trail of destr ...
|
