With the devastation Hurricane Harvey wrought in Texas still fresh on their minds, some Florida residents on Tuesday said they were hastening preparations ahead of Hurricane Irma. The “potentially catastrophic” Category 5 hurricane is forecast to reach southern Florida on Saturday, prompting Governor Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency and locals to snatch up whatever bottled water and plywood they could find.
“Normally, people here don’t like to prepare,” said Gary Palmer, a 60-year-old deputy sheriff who visited a home supply store in Fort Lauderdale. “But what happened in Texas opened up everybody’s eyes.”
As residents in Houston continued to dig out from last month’s storm and began returning to school and work on Tuesday, officials in South Florida made plans to close some schools and evacuate vacationers. Monroe County, which includes the Florida Keys, issued a mandatory evacuation order for all visitors, and its schools and government offices will be closed starting on Wednesday, the county said on its website.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Irma was the most powerful Atlantic storm ever recorded outside the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The storm packed winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour) on Tuesday afternoon as it headed toward the Caribbean and southern United States. Florida’s governor said he had asked President Donald Trump to make a “pre-landfall” emergency declaration. A Category 5 hurricane is the highest NHC designation.
Source: Reuters
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