Hurricane Irma - the path of destruction

no well I hope there aren't too many people in the pet you don't want to be in that path that's a path you don't want to be in and we tried to warn everybody and for the most part they've left but that's a bad path to be in [Music] this is a life-threatening situation take this deadly storm seriously [Applause] [Music] overnight the moment florida had braced irma hid land and the Sunshine State went dark thousands hunkered down in shelters and sports stadiums to ride it out animals were taken to a safe place this was too much rain too much water even for the two-legged variety there was a mandatory evacuation order in parts of Florida but some decided to stay put building here is though in 67 it's pre-stressed concrete slabs on poured concrete walls so we feel pretty confident we've been through a lot of storms in that hurricane Willman we had to water come up to the second set of block we're anticipating the same thing to happen boats would tied down and fingers were crossed the authorities it being quite clear that they show the danger to life and and that's understandable and that that really is the truth for most most locations but at 13 and a half foot of elevation with another 10 feet on top of that plus the fact that the building is so strong that's our advantage Key West was wet on the first major even sturdy historic monuments like the Castillo de San Marcos in San Augustine couldn't escape mother nature in Naples further up the coast water levels rose by two meters in just 90 minutes fort myers was next in it fog swirled around skyscrapers and roads were flooded [Music] this is the situation right now around breckel Bay the water from the bay has started to go inside the building since the lobby of the building but it's really pretty dangerous I should be honest nobody should let me out nobody in Tampa as in much of Florida the streets were deserted water has sucked out of the harbor by the storm a misleading prelude thought was about to come the authorities were worried about a storm surge I've never seen nothing like this I think we're pretty prepared for it and our houses all boarded up and everything just about the wind mostly in trees coming down we're up and in activation level see so I'm not really worried about the water up there but just the wind and trees we were just a little curious to see what the water level was like and how things were down here and get outside before we have to hunker down here by the time it reached the city the hurricane had lost some of its power but none of its fearsome reputation Irma made landfall on the southern shores of Florida early on Sunday evening as it approached the state it increased in strength and changed direction Miami was spared a direct hit the Florida Keys were hit hard though with winds of a hundred and thirty miles per hour as she progressed she gradually downgraded to a category 1 storm with winds of 75 miles per hour as it moves along Florida's west coast by the morning the center of the storm was about 60 miles north of Tampa moving north towards Georgia and weakening into a tropical storm the for Florida Cuba took a battering it proved to be a cruel few hours for the island not only to Dermer change track to smash into the northern coast she also suddenly gained strength as well 170 mile per hour winds and heavy rain caused heaven this is the British Virgin Islands virtually no home has been undamaged infrastructure has been ripped apart [Music] it's like a war zone the house is gone it's flattened people are just wandering around carrying whatever they've got in their hand it's truly surrender one eyewitness has described the BVI is Ground Zero another resident thinks it will take a year or more to rebuild power lines are down wireless power is degree everywhere people walking around homeless someday the hospital has also been badly damaged the doctor on holiday in Spain has been in touch with colleagues there they were still Smurfs are still some of my colleagues that are unaccounted for and they've heard nothing from we don't know if they survived the kind of people that they would have been straight there to help more British aid has been flown out by the RAF today medical equipment and heavy lifting gear 120 prisoners on the island escaped during the hurricane and so officers from the Metropolitan Police have also gone to the British Virgin Islands to help with law and order the scale of the devastation is unprecedented so of course people are experiencing great hardship and our job right now is to make sure that we can alleviate that hardship through the response on the ground getting food water hygiene shelter to people that desperately need it and we aren't doing that but obviously the need is great and we're constantly replenishing supplies on the island of San Martin troops now patrol the streets of the territory this was one of the worst-hit two people were killed here and more than 40 injured the island is jointly administered by the French and the Dutch this footage was filmed by Marines from the Netherlands military there are now 200 extra troops on the island helping to deliver aid and restore order amid reports of looting a few hundred people have also been evacuated to Guadeloupe including Johanna Cardona who gave birth the day after the hurricane struck it's Julia II I was in the house during the storm it was horrible the hosts fell apart no it's war in Sint Maarten for food water there's no electricity no air nothing [Music] the Bahamas is counting its blessings the storm hit but it was a glancing blow and it has merged largely unscathed the holiday nation has been spared the ordeal that befell is Caribbean neighbors they prayed for mercy and those prayers were answered this is what it did to the Turks and Caicos Islands though I was inside when I see to my skimming my BOB ten o'clock I got to run and I fall down all my hand pulls up and I lost everything Florida of course has been here before at this hour were issuing a hurricane warning for the southeast coast of Florida extending from Vero Beach southward through the Florida Keys Hurricane Andrew devastated Miami County in 1992 killing more than 60 people and destroying a hundred and twenty five thousand homes on the left this is what Andrew looked like 25 years ago irma is the storm on the right it dwarfs it this was the scene in Tampa as it woke up at the beginning of a new week [Applause] people are starting to return home cautiously one of the first tasks will be to restore power 5.7 million homes across Florida without electricity we are still of course worried about the storm surge and the heavy rain that will be associated with what is left of Emma so that the next drop down from a category one would be to a tropical storm and those are bad enough that a tropical depression and we're looking at it going into the mountainous areas of Georgia South Carolina Alabama and on into Tennessee it will be dropping about four or five inches of rain and when you drop that kind of rain in a mountainous area flash flooding of course is a problem we are also forecasting winds upwards of 50 miles per hours so you can expect wind damage shingles coming up roofs things like that after days of nervous waiting Irma is finally dying out [Music] she's been downgraded to a tropical storm [Music] the strongest hurricane in history hasn't quite flown it's last and it has done its worst [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Sky News

Views: 380,938

Keywords: Hurricane, Hurricane Irma, Climate Change, Texas, Caribbean, storm, United States, Florida

Id: k2GqdIISjko

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 11 2017