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UPDATE Live footage as Hurricane Irma destroys Maho Beach Cam in St Maarten 9 6 2017

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Live footage of Hurricane Irma destroying the MahoBeachCam.com camera Live satellite monitor, Hurricane Irma - Latest News and Images Live Radar - Radar en Vivo Imagenes en vivo del Huracan Irma , Imagenes de satelite en vivo.

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At least 19 people have died as Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean this week, destroying buildings and uprooting trees on its potentially catastrophic path toward Florida.

The Category 4 storm - the most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever - battered the Turks and Caicos Islands early Friday, where waves as high as 20 feet were expected. Communications went down as the storm slammed into the islands. Tourists were evacuated from beachside resorts as the storm barrels toward central Cuba and the Bahamas with Florida in its sights.

Irma caused "severe and in places critical" damage already to the island of Anguilla, according to the United Kingdom. It also ripped through the islands of Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy and blacked out much of Puerto Rico.

With the hurricane more than 400 miles southeast of Miami, the first hurricane warnings were issued for parts of southern Florida as the state braced for what could be a catastrophic hit over the weekend.

The National Hurricane Center has warned that the hurricane is increasingly likely to slam into Florida this weekend - as Texas and Louisiana cope with the devastating aftermath caused by Hurricane Harvey.

"Everyone in hurricane-prone areas should ensure that they have their hurricane plan in place," officials said.

Here's what you should know about Hurricane Irma and its trajectory.
Where is Hurricane Irma today?
Hurricane Irma is located about 450 miles southeast of Miami, and about 80 miles northeast of Cuba, the National Hurricane Center said in its 8 a.m. ET advisory.

The storm is headed west-northwest at 16 mph with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph and is currently moving between the central Bahamas and the north coast of Cuba.
When is it expected to make landfall?
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday that the Florida Keys may feel Irma's effects Friday night. Forecasters have said that the storm could travel up through Georgia and South Carolina as well.

President Donald Trump declared emergencies in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
HURRICANE IRMA TAKES AIM AT TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO, SOCIAL MEDIA GOES WILD
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said four people were confirmed dead and about 50 injured on the French side of St. Martin, an island split between Dutch and French control. The toll could rise because rescue teams had yet to get a complete look at the damage.

Three more deaths were reported on the British island of Anguilla, independent Barbuda and the Dutch side of St. Martin.
PHOTOS: HURRICANE IRMA BARRELS THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN What else should I know about the storm?
Hurricane Irma is classified as a Category 4 storm and is extremely dangerous. It brings with it life-threatening winds, storm surges and rainfall, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The agency had predicted Irma would stay at Category 4 or 5 as it passed just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, neared the Turks and Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirted Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.
HURRICANE IRMA HAS FLORIDA ZOOS, WILDLIFE PARKS PREPARING FOR CATEGORY 5 STORM
Residents on the U.S. East Coast were urged to monitor the storm's progress in case it should turn northward toward Florida, Georgia or the Carolinas.

"This hurricane has the potential to be a major event for the East Coast. It also has the potential to significantly strain FEMA and other governmental resources occurring so quickly on the heels of (Hurricane) Harvey," Evan Myers, chief operating officer of AccuWeather, said in a statement.

And while its impact on the continental U.S. is uncertain, Florida Gov. Rick Scott already declared a state of emergency Monday in all 67 counties in order to ensure "local governments have ample time, resources and flexibility to get prepared for this dangerous storm."

"In Florida, we always prepare for the worst and hope for the best and while the exact path of Irma is not absolutely known at this time, we cannot afford to not be prepared," Scott said.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also declared a state of emergency on Wednesday ahead of the storm. If Irma strikes South Carolina, it would be the first major hurricane to do so since Hurricane Hugo, the Associated Press reported.

On Thursday, Georgia's governor ordered a mandatory evacuation starting on Saturday from the state's Atlantic coast ahead of Hurricane Irma. That includes the city of Savannah.

Gov. Nathan Deal issued the evacuation for all areas east of Interstate 95, all of Chatham County and some areas west of the interstate. He also expanded a state of emergency to 30 counties.

Deal's order authorizes about 5,000 Georgia National Guard members to be on active duty to help people respond and recover.

Georgia hasn't been hit by a hurricane with winds Category 3 or higher since 1898.

Also Thursday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statewide emergency declaration and told people to be prepared statewide even though projections suggest the storm could be much weaker by next week.

Cooper said that tropical storms can be very dangerous, and "this storm can impact any part of North Carolina -- all over our state from the mountains to the coast."

The last Category 5 storm to hit the United States was Hurricane Andrew in 1992. An estimated 250,000 were left homeless and the storm caused more than $20 billion in damage in the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana. Fifty-five people were killed.
Fox News' Jake Ingrassia, Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Zoe Szathmary and The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

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Hurricane Irma's storm path: What you should know

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At least 19 people have died as Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean this week, destroying buildings and uprooting trees on its potentially catastrophic path toward Florida. The Category 4 storm - the most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever - battered the Turks and Caicos Islands early Friday, where waves as high as 20 feet were expected.

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tropical cyclone is a general term for an intense low-pressure weather system that forms over and is fueled by tropical oceanwaters. In the North Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Pacific Ocean, strong tropical cyclones are called hurricanes

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Some estimates say Irma could inflict $125 billion to $200 billion in economic losses on Florida.

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wrath of hurricane irma on the caribbean - cnn video

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Wrath of Hurricane Irma on the Caribbean - CNN Video

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Lives have been lost and buildings destroyed after Hurricane Irma's 180 mph winds ripped through parts of the Caribbean.

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With the destruction from Hurricane Harvey, now closely followed by the extraordinary intensity of Hurricane Irma as it wreaks havoc in the Caribbean and heads toward Florida, Americans can be forgiven for feeling like it's 2005 all over again.

That was the year of Katrina, Rita and Wilma - and it was preceded by 2004, when four strong hurricanes slammed into Florida. Most alarming was the enormous Ivan, which produced 90 foot high waves offshore before striking the Gulf Coast.

Since 2005, though, we've experienced no major U.S. landfalls until Harvey this year. All of a sudden, it feels like we're living in an Atlantic bowling alley once again. Or as NOAA hurricane scientist Eric Blake bluntly put it on Twitter: "2017 has that 2004/2005 feel ugh."

But why is that the case?

The answer is anything but simple. There are some major oddities of hurricane behavior in the North Atlantic basin - the region that includes the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico - that continue to puzzle scientists and spark debate. Surveying them helps explain where we now find ourselves - and also, how dangerous complacency about hurricane dangers, triggered by long periods of calmer activity or fewer storm strikes, can too easily set in.
Atlantic ups and downs
Hurricane patterns in the Atlantic present a long-standing puzzle.

After causing considerable destruction in the 1940s through 1960s, Atlantic hurricanes largely calmed down in the 1970s and 1980s. That's not to say there weren't several intense storms - but average activity was lower.

Then, hurricanes bounced back again around 1995, and we've had mostly busy years ever since. This "active" period was capped by 2005, when a staggering 28 storms formed, and forecasters had to turn to the Greek alphabet ("Hurricane Epsilon") once they ran out of assigned names.

But since 2005, while there have been ample number of hurricanes overall in the Atlantic, the United States itself has been lucky. Before Hurricane Harvey, the continental United States had not been hit by a Category 3 or higher "major hurricane" for 12 years - dating all the way back to 2005's Hurricane Wilma.

This pattern of activity raises two questions. First, why does Atlantic hurricane activity seemingly switch on and off over decades? And second: Why, during a period when that activity was still presumably "on," did the United States avoid being hit by strong storms for so long?
Is there a natural hurricane cycle in the Atlantic Ocean?
Atlantic hurricane seasons over the years have been shaped by many complex factors, explained Jim Kossin, a hurricane scientist with NOAA and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Those include large scale ocean currents, air pollution - which tends to cool the ocean down - and climate change, which does the opposite.

"Pollution over the Atlantic increased for a few decades and then decreased after the Clean Air Acts and Amendments in the 1970s," said Kossin. "Finally, added to all of this up-and-down behavior is the slow trend in ocean temperatures from increasing greenhouse gases."

On top of all that is the notion of a so-called Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation - a swing toward and away from more hurricane conducive conditions in the Atlantic, thanks to shifts in large scale ocean currents and their effect on Atlantic Ocean temperatures. The idea is that we shifted away from those hurricane-friendly conditions in the 1970s and 1980s, back to them in 1995, and then, just maybe, were poised to swing back to negative conditions again as of 2015.

But this idea is contested.

"A debate continues about why the 1970s and 80s were relatively quiet in the Atlantic," said MIT hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel. "Some believe that it was the consequence of a natural climate oscillation called the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO), while others, including me, think is was mostly a consequence of sulfate aerosol pollution."

Sulfate air pollution would have blocked some sunlight that might otherwise have reached the Atlantic Ocean - and thus, reduced its temperature. Reducing such air pollution through regulations would have the opposite effect - warming the Atlantic.

Gabriel Vecchi, a hurricane researcher at NOAA and Princeton University, thinks there's something to the idea that ocean current changes in the Atlantic also set up hurricane phases - but he also agreed that the decrease in pollution mattered.

"At the same time you could have the Atlantic currents vary," he said. "And so that to me seems the most likely explanation, that both things happened."
Why did the U.S. escape major hurricane damage for so long?
Whatever you think about the idea of an Atlantic oscillation, storms have been generally active, overall, since 1995. This hurricane season, in particular, was widely forecast to be above average, featuring (per NOAA) some 14-19 named storms, 5-9 hurricanes, and 2-5 major hurricanes (we are at 11, six and two so far).

Yet another hurricane with strong potential, Jose, is following Irma in the open Atlantic. Seas this year are quite warm, and the crosscutting winds that can tear hurricanes apart have been light.

Yet while Harvey struck the United States at Category 4 strength, and there's a similarly worrying forecast for Irma, the mainland United States had avoided a Category 3 or higher landfall since 2005. (Analyses of the so-called U.S. hurricane "drought" have been confined to the continental United States, but it's important not to forget about U.S. territories, like Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which have just sustained severe damage from Irma.)

The odds of this major hurricane drought are certainly low. Two years back, a study in Geophysical Research Letters found that even a nine-year drought would likely take 177 years to return - but that study only ran through 2014. The drought then continued for two more years after that.

This lack of recent strong U.S. hurricane strikes has been much remarked upon - and a number of ideas have been adduced to explain it. Hurricane scientists Phil Klotzbach and Brian McNoldy, writing at The Post's Capital Weather Gang, have noted in the last decade a kind of hurricane goalkeeper has set up over the eastern United States in the form of a low pressure area that steers storms away from us.

Kossin has also conducted research that combines the concept of the "drought" with the overall active era for U.S. hurricanes, finding that while storms are more numerous in active periods, they're also more likely to weaken near the U.S. coast.

But there's also the view that what we're seeing is a mixture of luck and particular definitions of what counts as a "major" hurricane.

After all, in 2012, we experienced Superstorm Sandy which, while not technically classified as a major hurricane at landfall, caused damage highly consistent with what they're capable of.

"The drought: I guess it has in fact come to an end with Harvey," said Kossin by email. "If Irma makes landfall as a major hurricane, then all the more so. Is this something systematic? Maybe, but there has always been a large random component to this so much of what has been happening is luck, good or bad."

For Vecchi, a lot of it is definitional. One plausible explanation for the hurricane "drought," he said, could be that "we're so focused on the Saffir-Simpson scale and this arbitrary difference between a Category 2 and a Category 3 at landfall, that we're missing the bigger picture, and nothing has changed."
Will global warming make it all worse?
Then there's the climate change question. Some scientists, like Penn State's Michael Mann, think too much has been pinned on Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation. That implies things won't swing back again - rather, busy hurricane seasons will stay put.

"It is really human-caused climate change that is causing the long-term trends we are seeing in intensity," said Mann.

If so, that would be bad news, since climate change would tend to shift the odds toward stronger storms.

"The overall finding that is in several previous publications that climate change has already produced a substantial increase in the proportion of intense (Cat 4-5) hurricanes continues to hold," said Greg Holland, a hurricane expert with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, by email. "So an active season now will tend to have a higher number of intense hurricanes than the same season 20 years ago."

Intense hurricanes like Irma, which has just set a record for intensity combined with longevity, with over 30 hours with wind speeds of 185 miles per hour.

Yet the question of whether storms are measurably stronger at present remains contested, with NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory asserting that "it is premature to conclude that human activities - and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming - have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity." The effect could be there, NOAA said, but not yet clearly detectable in the statistics.

In the meantime, one thing is clear. Lulls in hurricane landfalls, during the 1970s and 1980s or during the last decade, can make the United States temporarily forget its vulnerability. And from coastal development to rising seas, to the vanishing of coral reefs in Florida and wetlands in Louisiana, that in turn could distract from the problems that make that vulnerability worse.

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Harvey, Irma and more: The science behind the sudden end to the U.S. hurricane 'drought'

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With the destruction from Hurricane Harvey, now closely followed by the extraordinary intensity of Hurricane Irma as it wreaks havoc in the Caribbean and heads toward Florida, Americans can be forgiven for feeling like it's 2005 all over again.

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Overwhelmed by the news from Texas and Louisiana since Hurricane Harvey made landfall? Here is an overview of coverage by The New York Times that will be updated as events continue.

The latest can be found in Tuesday's live storm briefing.

What's happening on the ground

At least 30 deaths and many more injuries are believed to be related to the storm, which has inundated parts of the Houston area with more than 40 inches of rain. In some places, totals have surpassed 50 inches, setting a record for the continental United States. At least a quarter of the land mass of Harris County, which includes Houston, is flooded, according to Jeffrey Lindner, a meteorologist for the Harris County Flood Control District.

Harvey is now hitting Louisiana, too, and storm surge alerts are in effect along hundreds of miles of coastline from Port Bolivar, Tex., to Morgan City, La. Here are some maps of its path and destruction.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, calling the storm " one of the largest disasters America has ever faced," said the region would not recover anytime soon. The flooding was so devastating that even the people who describe weather for a living struggled to convey its scope. More than a trillion gallons of rain fell in Harris County in four days - enough to "run Niagara Falls for 15 days," Mr. Lindner said.

Some residents grappled with whether to stay in their homes, after Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston made the difficult decision not to issue a mandatory evacuation order. On Tuesday evening, Mr. Turner announced a curfew from midnight to 5 a.m.

Houston's hospitals struggled to treat victims, and the upheaval closed schools across Texas. The brutal storm also put the brakes on the area's recent economic upswing and revealed vulnerabilities for the oil and gas industries.

Here are some of the most powerful photos of the devastation. If you can do so safely, please share your own photos and videos here, or leave us a voice mail message. And listen to Tuesday's episode of "The Daily" podcast to hear from some people who fled the storm.

Who is responding and how?

Emergency dispatchers were overwhelmed over the weekend as dramatic rescues unfolded across the state. Many people shared an image of nursing home residents in waist-high waters before they were rescued. Clifford Krauss, a Times reporter, filed a dispatch from his own flooded house. The rescues continued on Monday and Tuesday, and some people went to great lengths to take their pets with them to safety.

President Trump visited Texas on Tuesday after signing a federal disaster proclamation over the weekend.

Houston opened its convention center as a mass shelter, as did Dallas. On Tuesday evening, the mayor of Houston announced that the Toyota Center, an 18,000-seat indoor arena, would open to relieve the pressure on the convention center. Tens of thousands of people are in shelters. In San Antonio and in Houston, some of them spoke to Times reporters about their fears for what awaited them back home.

In comments on our storm coverage, Times readers shared their shock, sympathy and encouragement for those awaiting rescue.

What made Harvey so powerful?

What set Harvey apart was its rain. Once the storm made landfall, it essentially stalled, turning roads in Houston and elsewhere into raging rivers. Scientists say it was fueled by a deadly combination of environmental factors.

"This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced," the National Weather Service tweeted Sunday morning.

For many people, the images of inundated streets and victims plucked from rooftops evoked comparisons to Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, survivors of Katrina saw themselves in the scenes from Houston.

How you can help

Many organizations are helping victims on the ground. Here are a few of them; a fuller list can be found here.

* The Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund was established by Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston and is administered by the Greater Houston Community Foundation.

* The Houston Food Bank, the Galveston County Food Bank and the Food Bank of Corpus Christi are accepting online donations.

* The Houston Humane Society and the San Antonio Humane Society are helping animals affected by the storm.

* Save the Children is accepting donations.

Some scams are circulating online. Here are a few things to watch out for.

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Hurricane Harvey: What Happened and What's Next

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Overwhelmed by the news from Texas and Louisiana since Hurricane Harvey made landfall? Here is an overview of coverage by The New York Times that will be updated as events continue. The latest can be found in Tuesday's live storm briefing.

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"This is a record-breaker. Unprecedented. Catastrophic."

That's how Jim Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, described Hurricane Irma to Wired.

At the time of this writing, Irma is a Category 5 hurricane, roughly the size of Texas, with top sustained winds over 185 miles per hour. It has already devastated Caribbean communities, and wreaked havoc on the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Now Irma is barreling toward Florida, with a population of 21 million and an economy worth $927 billion annually. Irma is projected to make landfall sometime this weekend. It might slam directly into the Florida peninsula, or cut north along the East Coast. But either case could be catastrophic: Irma is now one of the most powerful and dangerous hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic.

Hurricane essentials are flying off store shelves in Florida with such speed that Walmart and Lowe's are having trouble keeping up. Evacuations have already begun in Miami-Dade County and the Keys. And while the state has plenty of gasoline stored up, panicked citizens are still creating temporary shortages by lining up at gas station pumps in anticipation of Irma's arrival.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has already declared a pre-emptive state of emergency, announced that tolls would be suspended across the state, and activated 7,000 National Guard troops. President Trump also signed an emergency declaration freeing up additional federal resources.

Some estimates say Irma could inflict $125 billion to $200 billion in economic losses on Florida. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina - which devastated New Orleans in 2005 - did $160 billion in damage. Hurricane Harvey, which barreled into Texas barely a week ago, flooding Houston in the process, could cost $180 billion when all is said and done. Irma could potentially top them both.

The last Category 5 storm to hit the state was Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which killed 65 people and delivered a $26.5 billion hit in economic damage. But since then, Florida has changed in ways that make the state's economy and citizens far more vulnerable: Coastal development has roared in South and Central Florida since the 1990s, adding 6 million people and a wealth of expensive properties. As a result, were Hurricane Andrew to hit today, it would do $100 billion in damage. And that's accounting for the stricter building codes put in place after Andrew hit. (Some 70 percent of South Florida's buildings were constructed before the codes took effect.)

In this sense, Florida illustrates a paradox that's taken shape across the country: As America has continued to grow in resources and knowledge, we've improved our storm responses and cut way down (in most cases) on loss of life. At the same time, the shape of U.S. economic development has put far more people and property in harm's way. When you add in the risk multipliers of climate change - rising sea levels that make flooding worse, hotter ocean temperatures that create stronger storms, and the loss of ecosystems that provide natural buffers against hurricanes - things look downright ominous.

"A direct hit from Irma could disrupt rail and container activity, and damage infrastructure for transportation, in addition to putting thousands of lives at risk," wrote Roberto Friedlander, head of energy trading for Seaport Global Securities. "Combined with rainfall, then we are looking at catastrophic flooding to a vast area that already has problems with water levels. Real estate risks are simply gigantic."

Real estate is also far from the only economic sector Irma could devastate.

Tourism is Florida's single biggest industry, providing almost a fourth of the state's sales tax revenue. Thanks to Irma, local hotels are already seeing both a rash of cancellations and an influx of evacuees. Theme parks are already refunding loads of tickets, and cruise ships are facing delays and canceled departures.

Florida is also America's second biggest agricultural state, just behind California. Florida is home to one-tenth of all U.S. land devoted to producing fresh fruit and vegetables. It's a top supplier of oranges, grapefruits, cucumbers, squash, and more. All told, agriculture, fishing, and horticulture contribute almost $150 billion annually to Florida's economy.

Irma's timing is at least somewhat fortuitous: Many winter crops have yet to be planted, and others are still early enough in the growing season and thus small enough that they could escape with minor damage. But the state's orange crop has already been gripped by disease over the last few years, leaving it in a vulnerable position. Futures on oranges and other crops are already spiking as investors panic over the storm.

"If [Irma] goes up the peninsula the way some forecasts project, it will do a tremendous amount of damage," Tom Spreen, a professor at the University of Florida, told CNN. "I don't want to get too dramatic and say this will be the end of Florida's citrus industry, but it'd be a big blow."

And of course, more important than all the economic numbers are the human lives at stake. Every bit of cropland destroyed is someone's livelihood; every home flooded is a family's past and future; every dollar of property damage also hides the potential loss of someone's life. Harvey has killed 70 people so far, and that number will probably rise. Far worse was Katrina, which ended over 1,800 human lives.

It seems unlikely that Irma could rival the latter's murderous capacity. Katrina's death toll was due to a horrendous mix of bad infrastructure planning, entrenched poverty, and gross neglect stemming from America's long history of racism and segregation. But Florida has not seen anything like Irma in a very long time. Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research, told Bloomberg that "thousands of lives" could be lost.

"This is not going to be the big slow-motion flood like Harvey - this is a real, honest-to-God hurricane."

It is also an unsettling reminder that for all of America's power, we remain very much at Mother Nature's mercy.

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How Hurricane Irma could destroy Florida's economy

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"This is a record-breaker. Unprecedented. Catastrophic." That's how Jim Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, described Hurricane Irma to Wired. At the time of this writing, Irma is a Category 5 hurricane, roughly the size of Texas, with top sustained winds over 185 miles per hour.

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Video shows Irma ripping through island - CNN Video

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Live video captures Hurricane Irma strike the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean.

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Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm with winds of up to 175 miles an hour, continued to tear through the Caribbean on Thursday, leaving devastation in its wake and prompting evacuation orders across the region.

The death toll was at least seven on Thursday afternoon, and the authorities warned that the number could rise as communications improved. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe of France said that four people were confirmed dead on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, lowering a previous toll of eight deaths given by local rescue officials.

A St. Martin official said on Wednesday night that "95 percent of the island is destroyed."

More than 70 percent of Puerto Rico households were without power on Thursday, though the territory appeared to be largely unscathed, the governor said. It was the latest blow for a territory mired in bankruptcy and debt that have left public works like power plants and retaining walls in poor shape.

Irma, one of most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded, was between Hispaniola and Turks and Caicos on Thursday afternoon, though its winds had weakened slightly. A hurricane watch was issued for South Florida, the Florida Keys, Lake Okeechobee and Florida Bay, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida urged residents to heed the advice of local officials in preparing for a powerful storm that could quickly change its course. "Every Florida family must prepare to evacuate regardless of the coast you live on," he said at a news conference.

* Sign up for the Morning Briefing for hurricane news and a daily look at what you need to know to begin your day.

Deteriorating conditions in Turks and Caicos.

A national shutdown was declared on the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday afternoon, halting emergency services as the storm passed.

"All residents and tourists are instructed to stay indoors, as responders will not be able to provide relief services during this time until further notice," said Virginia Clerveaux, the director of the Disaster Management Department.

The few supermarkets in the city of Providenciales were crammed with residents stocking up on food, and there were long lines at gas stations.

Ms. Clerveaux warned of deteriorating conditions on the island after 2 p.m. "We expect to have very strong storm surges, and roads will be severely flooded," she said.

Scores of people were already in emergency shelters that had opened on Wednesday evening.

Haiti closes public and private institutions.

The Haitian government called for all institutions, public and private, including banks and stores, to be shut down from noon on Thursday until further notice.

President Jovenel Moïse said in a televised speech that his cabinet had spent a week preparing for the hurricane, but he also outlined the challenges ahead, noting that 77 percent of the country was mountainous, much of it inaccessible by road.

He urged people to heed the hurricane warnings and get to a safe place. "The hurricane is not a game," he said.

All schools in the country were closed on Wednesday and Thursday, and the more than 800 temporary shelters set up across the country have started providing food to people affected by the storm.

The police are working with local officials to evacuate people from the most vulnerable areas along the northern coast, "by force if necessary," Interior Minister Max Rudolph Saint-Albin said at a news conference on Thursday.

The concern is not just about possible drownings and injuries from the storm, but also that a surge of cholera could follow, as happened last year after Hurricane Matthew devastated the country's southwest.

The Minister of Public Health, speaking on national television and radio, urged people to add bleach to their drinking and bathing water and to put together first-aid kits at home.

To date this year, government reports show that 104 people have died from the waterborne disease that broke out in Haiti starting in 2010.
- CATHERINE PORTER
'Our prayers were answered.'

In Puerto Rico, nearly 70 percent of households were without power in the wake of the storm, which otherwise left the island largely unscathed, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said on Thursday.

Roughly 40 percent of the territory's hospitals were functioning, he said, and were accepting transfers of about 40 patients from the United States Virgin Islands.

Power outages have left about 17 percent of the territory without running water, he said.

"We would like to start out thanking the Almighty," Mr. Rosselló said of the relatively small impact the storm had on Puerto Rico, with fallen trees and electrical poles making up the bulk of the damage on the main island. "Our prayers were answered."

Total rainfall on the island ranged from two to eight inches, the governor said, but southern regions are still at risk of flooding because the rain there had not stopped.

Concern had been greatest for the small island of Culebra. Communication with the island remained difficult, but Mr. Rosselló said that the authorities had managed to speak with the mayor and the police lieutenant there.

"The information we have - again, thank God, because Culebra did see wind gusts above 100 m.p.h. - is positive," he said.
- FRANCES ROBLES
A record period of 185 m.p.h. winds.

Irma's 185 m.p.h. wind speeds persisted for more than 24 hours, the longest period ever recorded. The French weather service described it as the most enduring superstorm on record.

Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said that half of Barbuda had been left homeless from the storm. Officials declared a state of emergency there on Thursday.

Around 11 a.m., the storm's eye was off the northern coast of Hispaniola, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the National Hurricane C enter said. It is expected to remain a Category 4 or 5 storm throughout the day.

The storm is expected to move near the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas on Thursday night, before coming close to Cuba on Friday or Saturday.

In the Dominican Republic, officials evacuated some areas near the beachfront town of Cabarete on the north coast, though some residents chose to stay boarded up their homes and ride it out.

President Danilo Medina canceled work for public and private companies, and schools were closed until Monday as emergency workers spread out to manage the storm's expected fallout.

Seventeen provinces, mostly along the nation's northern, eastern and southern coastlines, had been under a red alert since Wednesday. But the center of the storm was passing in the north, with winds and rains lashing areas like Puerto Plata.

Evacuations took place in Samana, a popular resort area, where heavy winds and rain struck the beaches and roads. Residents in Cabarete said that so far the effects of the storm were relatively mild.

"It's really not that bad," said Lindsay Sauvage, who lives with her family in Cabarete and said the electricity had shut off around 3 a.m. "We expected much worse."
- CARL JOSEPH and AZAM AHMED
'It's just unbelievable. It's indescribable.'

Four people have been confirmed dead on the island of St Martin, Mr. Philippe, the French prime minister, said on Thursday, lowering a previous toll of eight deaths given by local rescue officials.

Around 50 people were injured, including two seriously, he said, and 60 percent of homes on the island are so badly damaged that they are now uninhabitable. Rescue workers assessing the damage on St. Martin and St. Barthélemy.

At least three deaths were reported elsewhere.

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Hurricane Irma, Churning Over Dominican Republic, Heads Toward Turks and Caicos

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Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm with winds of up to 175 miles an hour, continued to tear through the Caribbean on Thursday, leaving devastation in its wake and prompting evacuation orders across the region. The death toll was at least seven on Thursday afternoon, and the authorities warned that the number could rise as communications improved.

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Hurricane Harvey has temporarily paralyzed a Houston region that represents a vital gear in the U.S. economy - a blow just as the city was mounting a halting recovery from the oil crash of 2014-16.

"It's absolutely slowing down the recovery," says Ed Friedman, an economist who covers the area for Moody's Analytics.

Moody's Analytics estimates the storm will result in $30 billion to $40 billion in property damage and about $7 billion in lost economic output as most restaurants, hotels, and retailers stay shuttered this week. About half the output should be recovered within a couple of months but it will take about two years to restore the damaged property, says Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandi.

"It's absolutely slowing down the recovery," says Ed Friedman, an economist who covers the area for Moody's Analytics.
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The region plays an outsize role in the U.S. economy. Its projected gross output of $441 billion this year represents about 2.4% of the nation's economy. But that doesn't tell the entire story. It's among the top three hubs for oil refineries. It's the largest center for chemical production. It boasts the No. 2 shipping port. And it contains two of the nation's busiest airports.

Its economy has been healing, if slowly. From December 2014 to December 2016, the oil price plunge wiped out about 77,000 jobs in mining, manufacturing, wholesale trade and professional and business services, says Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. Only about 7,000 of those positions have been recovered, he says.

Gilmer says a "burst of optimism" propelled hiring last year as OPEC announced oil production cuts, pushing up crude prices. But prices have leveled off below $50 a barrel this year amid abundant output in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The area's 5.3% unemployment rate is below the 5.7% peak in January but well above the 4.3% U.S. rate. Auto sales plummeted 30% in the first quarter.

Yet after flat job growth in 2015 and meager gains last year, the area has added 38,000 job so far this year, outpacing the rate of U.S. payroll growth. Gilmer credits a Houston economy that has become increasingly diversified in recent decades.

"It says something that Houston is not just an oil town anymore," Gilmer says.

The metro area is a headquarters base for companies such as Waste Management and food service giant Sysco, and provides large regional bases for insurance giant AIG, computer stalwart HP and United Airlines. It also has cultivated a strong health care sector.

Friedman figures the Houston area economy will grow about 1.3% this year, vs. the 2% pace it was tracking before Harvey hit.

Here's a rundown of the region's major industries:

* Energy. The shutdown of gasoline refineries and shipping lanes in the Houston area is disrupting a significant energy economy. Refineries there account for 2.46 million barrels per day, representing more than 13% of the nation's refining capacity, according to data from Goldman Sachs and JBC Energy.

Among the closures resulting from Harvey was the Exxon plant in Baytown, which makes up more than one-fifth of the region's gasoline production capacity. The Baytown plant is located on the Houston Shipping Channel, a vital lane for the movement of energy products. Port Houston shuttered the channel on Friday, and it remained closed Monday morning.

Sporadic gasoline shortages could pop up at stations in Dallas, Waco and San Antonio, in addition to Houston and Corpus Christi, GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick DeHaan said.

Offshore oil production between Houston and Lake Charles accounts for 160,000 barrels per day, but much of the region's energy production now happens inland, where risks of long-term damage are not as severe.

The shuttering of local refineries triggered spikes in fuel prices as the energy-rich region reels from ferocious flooding. With rain continuing to pummel the Houston region, U.S. motorists are likely to experience an increase of up to 25 cents per gallon in some areas, DeHaan said. Oil prices ticked upward slightly Monday, though petroleum is a global commodity with many other factors at play.

As rain pounds Texas, some energy production in the Eagle Ford shale oil and gas area could go temporarily offline, analysts warned.

* Chemicals. Texas is a leader in chemical production. And about a third of U.S. chemical production has been disrupted by Harvey as large manufacturers shut down plants, according to Bloomberg.

With easy access to oil and gas customers and ports, the industry has thrived in the Houston area. The region has over 535 chemical manufacturing companies, many of them working closely with oil and gas partners, according to the Greater Houston Partnership. Among the chemical manufacturers closing plants or limiting production are Exxon Mobil, Occidental Chemical, OxyVinyls, Chevron Phillips, Shell, Ineos and Equistar. About 70 million pounds of ethylene production per day is shut as of Monday morning, according to PetroChemWire. That's' about 55% of Texas' total capacity.

* Automotive. The Houston area is not a major source of automotive manufacturing, limiting the impact to vehicle production. But local sales immediately suffered, which will likely temporarily undermine national figures. AutoNation, the largest U.S. dealership company, closed its 18 local stores and seven collision centers, spokesman Marc Cannon confirmed. The company, which has about 2,000 employees in the region, began preparing for the storm several days before it hit.

"Our most important thing is ensuring the safety of our associates, getting help to them," Cannon said. During the 10 costliest U.S. hurricanes, national auto sales have dropped by an average of 4% in the month the storm hit, according to Strategas Economics. But sales typically rebound in the months afterward as consumers replaced damaged vehicles and buyers make purchases they had intended to make earlier.

* Airports. Aviation is important for the economy in Houston, which is home to two of the USA's busiest airports, Bush Intercontinental and Houston Hobby. Harvey has dealt a blow to those airports and the airlines serving them. Flight operations were suspended at each during the weekend, and both remained closed Monday - grounding thousands of flights that would have normally carried tens of thousands of passengers.

Houston's Bush Intercontinental is the region's busiest. It handled 43 million passengers in 2015, when it ranked as the 12th-busiest airport in the U.S. Bush Intercontinental - which uses the airport code IAH - also serves as the second-largest hub for United Airlines as measured by passengers.

From Houston, United averages about 480 departures a day to destinations across North America and to Japan, Europe and Latin America. The airport is a major transfer point for customers making connections between United's other destinations. The company employs about 14,000 workers in the greater Houston area.

IAH also is served by dozens of other airlines, both foreign and domestic. Among those: Aeromexico, Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airways, American, British Airways, Delta, EVA Air, Frontier, LATAM Airlines, Lufthansa, Spirit and WestJet.

To Houston's south side is Houston Hobby, the second-busiest of the two airports. Hobby - airport code HOU - handles about 12 million passengers per year. It was the USA's 33rd busiest in 2015 and is a major base for Southwest Airlines.

Southwest is by far the dominant airline at Houston Hobby, accounting for the majority of Hobby's flights and passengers. Southwest averages about 159 daily departures from the airport and flies non-stop to more than 50 destinations from Hobby.

Hobby is the seventh-busiest airport among the more than 100 served by Southwest and is used by the carrier as a base to funnel fliers making connections between its other destinations.

Recently, Southwest opened Hobby as a new base for its recently launched international flying. Its international destinations from Hobby include Aruba; Cancun; Liberia, Costa Rica; Mexico City; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and San Jose, Costa Rica, among others.

Four other airlines besides Southwest fly from Hobby. They are American, Delta, JetBlue and ViaAir.

* Shipping: The Port of Houston is the second-largest in the nation. While much of the shipments are tied to the oil, gas and chemical industries, it's also the 10th largest port for non-energy products. The storm has brought the facility to a standstill.

* Health. Houston has become a thriving center for healthcare research and services. Texas Medical Center employs more than 100,000, Gilmer says. And the University of Texas Health Science Center is a major employer.

* Construction. Single-family home sales and construction have rebounded along with job growth. But apartment building has fallen sharply this year and the vacancy rate has approached 20%. Largely sustaining the region has been the construction of about $100 billion in new petrochemical plants the past few years, Gilmer says. Yet while those projects employ thousands of construction workers, the efficient facilities employ relatively few permanent workers.
Contributing: Ben Mutzabaugh, Roger Yu.
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Why Hurricane Harvey could hurt U.S. economy: 'Houston is not just an oil town anymore'

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CLOSE Hurricane Harvey has temporarily paralyzed a Houston region that represents a vital gear in the U.S. economy - a blow just as the city was mounting a halting recovery from the oil crash of 2014-16. "It's absolutely slowing down the recovery," says Ed Friedman, an economist who covers the area for Moody's Analytics.

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florida and puerto rico prepare for irma - cnn

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Hurricane Irma strengthens; Florida and Puerto Rico prepare

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Hurricane Irma strengthened to a Category 4 storm Monday afternoon, churning west in the Atlantic Ocean and prompting emergency declarations in Florida and Puerto Rico.

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THOSE who live on America's coasts know to prepare for wrathful hurricanes in late summer-nailing plywood to their windows as the storm approaches. America's property insurers and reinsurers are ready, too, using sophisticated models to track storms and estimate potential losses. But wind is not the only danger from hurricanes. Ask Houstonians who saw their homes inundated by Hurricane Harvey's 52 inches (132cm) of rain in the six days to August 30th. Or those in tthe path of Hurricane Irma, which, as The Economist went to press, was wreaking havoc across the Caribbean. But whereas wind damage is covered under most standard insurance policies in America, flood insurance is a government-run add-on that far from all homeowners buy. As a result, of over $30bn in property losses in Texas, only 40% may be insured.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was set up in 1968, after a series of large losses led private insurers to pull back. Those living within a 100-year floodplain (ie, with a 1% annual chance of a flood occurring), as defined by the maps of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and holding a government-guaranteed mortgage, are obliged to purchase NFIP coverage. Others can buy it as an add-on, but few do. The programme covers only about 5m properties in all of America. In Houston much of the damage occurred outside the floodplain, so many properties may be completely uncovered, and left relying on ad hoc federal relief.

For political reasons, NFIP charges low premiums, pricing out private insurers. But this also means its income does not cover all losses, and it is forced to borrow from American taxpayers. After Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012, the programme is $25bn in the red. Moreover, the rigid caps it puts on coverage ($250,000 per private house, $100,000 for its contents, $500,000 per business property, and $500,000 for its contents) do not suit all small businesses and homeowners. Large companies can and do buy private flood insurance (for which they pay a high price).

Might a private-sector solution be more efficient? One difficulty is that flood risk is tricky to model, and so to insure. As Dan Dick of Aon Benfield, a reinsurance broker, points out, assessing a property's flood risk requires detailed and very localised data on topography. Insurers have, until recently, simply not had access to the right data, or to models sophisticated enough to gauge flood risk properly. That has changed over the past decade as specialised modelling firms like RMS, famous for its hurricane modelling, and JBA have started to offer flood models; Aon also has its own models. Still, private flood insurance remains a tiny part of the market (though last year the NFIP did, for the first time, take out private reinsurance on some of its risks).

Another obstacle is that flooding is very heavily concentrated and owners of high-risk properties are far more likely to seek insurance, making it difficult to spread risks. But other countries show how private insurance markets can play a bigger role. In Britain private insurers include flood coverage as part of standard policies, so risks are distributed across a wider pool of policyholders. But the government intervenes heavily in reinsurance through a body called Flood Re. This is meant to keep insurance affordable even for high-risk areas through mandatory cross-subsidies, financed by a levy on all insurers.

Germany, for its part, has no direct state intervention at all in flood insurance. Its mapping system divides the country into four zones: areas of ten-, 100-, and 200-year floods, and all those beyond. It was developed by the insurance industry, not the government, and allows for more sophisticated risk assessment and pricing than does America's mandated purchasing.

Even so, no country has fully faced up to the thorny questions raised by flood insurance. Pooling flood risk means those in flood-prone areas pay little more than those in dry ones for insurance, which weakens the disincentive to build in such vulnerable areas. Exceptions, such as Flood Re's exclusion of flood-prone houses built after 2009, or NFIP's discounts for communities that take measures to reduce flood risk, are not enough to counter this effect. Meanwhile, losses from floods keep growing: so far, this has mostly been because of higher property values, says Michael Szoenyi of Zurich Insurance, but the trend will continue as climate change increases the incidence of floods.

An alternative approach has been taken by the Netherlands, which, despite its vulnerable position at sea level, does not have generally available flood insurance. The country has focused instead on building robust flood-protection infrastructure. Recurrent floods require more than better insurance arrangements. Dams and dykes may matter more.

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Hurricane Harvey has exposed the inadequacy of flood insurance

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THOSE who live on America's coasts know to prepare for wrathful hurricanes in late summer-nailing plywood to their windows as the storm approaches. America's property insurers and reinsurers are ready, too, using sophisticated models to track storms and estimate potential losses. But wind is not the only danger from hurricanes.

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Terrifying Hurricane Harvey Footage 2017!

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Hurricane Harvey, which deluged Houston with days of torrential rain and flooding, is expected to be one of the "costliest disasters in post-war U.S. history," and a likely drag on third-quarter economic growth by a full percentage point, Goldman Sachs said on Saturday.

Costs from the Category 3 storm that hammered Texas last month will eclipse those associated with 2012's Hurricane Sandy, the bank's analysts wrote in a research note. Using a model that examined the 35 largest hurricanes to strike the U.S. in the aftermath of World War II, Goldman found that major natural disasters correlated closely with a "temporary slowdown" in key economic gauges.

"Modeling these effects, we estimate that hurricane-related disruptions could reduce 3Q GDP growth by as much as 1 percentage point," Goldman's analysts wrote, adding that the main impact would be felt in consumer spending, business inventories, housing and the energy sectors.

Accordingly, the bank forecast a "meaningful drag" on growth indicators for the next two months, which could extend to a short-lived drag on September payrolls - which could be anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 jobs. Because of a jump in gas prices, Goldman also expects short-term price pressure that will add 0.2 percentage points to annual headline inflation.

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Hurricane Harvey probably shaved 1% from third-quarter growth, Goldman Sachs says

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Hurricane Harvey, which deluged Houston with days of torrential rain and flooding, is expected to be one of the "costliest disasters in post-war U.S. history," and a likely drag on third-quarter economic growth by a full percentage point, Goldman Sachs said on Saturday.

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After years of quiet, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has exploded. Three hurricanes are spinning in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, with Hurricane Irma aiming monstrous winds directly at Florida.

As the nation recovers from Hurricane Harvey and the floods that affected millions of Americans in Houston and much of the surrounding areas, Wall Street is deeply examining the impacts to the economy and individual sector groups. This analysis will become further complicated by the damage Irma will likely bring.

However, because of the way GDP growth is calculated, the rebuilding efforts are expected to largely cover the losses related to the displacement of millions of souls and billions in property damage. Economics isn't exactly the most heart-warming social science, I know. Already, the Harvey-related surge in gasoline prices is fading, and stocks like Home Depot ( HD) are poised to benefit from rebuilding.

Somewhat ironically, the insurance industry isn't likely to take a big hit because so many affected properties lack flood coverage. UBS analysts estimate the impact between $10 billion and $20 billion, something they believe insurers can pay out of current earnings, avoiding the need for capital raising.

For restaurant stocks, the risk from Hurricane Harvey is to companies that do heavy business in Texas and the surrounding area. Sonic ( SONC) has nearly a third of its store base in Texas. Same with Jack in the Box ( JACK).

For automakers, Texas represents 9 percent of the U.S. market, but it has a disproportionate appetite for high-margin pickup trucks. With Cox Automotive estimating that Harvey destroyed around 500,000 vehicles that will need replacing, Ford ( F) and GM ( GM) are poised for a sales and profit lift in the fourth quarter as insurance claims are processed and new purchases commence.

And for airlines, United ( UAL) is expected to bear the brunt of the pain, with 19 percent of its capacity touching Houston. That could hit third-quarter earnings per share by about 20 percent .

Obviously, the calculus for Irma and its impact on Florida will differ slightly, with companies like Disney ( DIS) and many cruise lines in the path of the storm.

The broad takeaway is this: Hurricanes, no matter how horrible, haven't been a major catalyst for broad stock market declines of widespread economic turmoil. Remember that even the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on energy prices was relatively short-lived.

Something to take solace in, perhaps.

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How Wall Street tallies Harvey's and Irma's impact

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After years of quiet, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has exploded. Three hurricanes are spinning in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, with Hurricane Irma aiming monstrous winds directly at Florida.

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Scary First Video Miami hit by Irma Hurricane , Florida

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Hurricane Irma About 140 Miles Away From Key West Major hurricane force winds are expected over the Florida Keys at daybreak as Irma moves closer. At 2 p.m., the Category 3 hurricane was about 145 miles southeast of Key West with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour.

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With Hurricane Irma battering the west coast of Florida, experts are explaining the science behind the deadly storm.

The hurricane, which has left a trail of devastation across the Caribbean, made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the Florida Keys Sunday morning, before setting out on a path along Florida's western coast.

Depending on where in the world they occur, hurricanes are also known as typhoons or cyclones. The scientific term for all these storms is a tropical cyclone, notes NASA. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones that form over the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern and central Pacific Ocean.

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale is used to measure the storms - from Category 1 (74-95 mph) to the strongest, Category 5, with wind speeds of 157 mph and higher.

A major hurricane has maximum sustained winds of 111 mph or higher, which corresponds to a Category 3, 4, or 5, according to NOAA's National Hurricane Center.

NASA compares tropical cyclones to "giant engines" that use warm, moist air as fuel. "That is why they form only over warm ocean waters near the equator," it explains. "This warm, moist air rises and condenses to form clouds and storms."

"As this warmer, moister air rises, there's less air left near the Earth's surface," adds the space agency. "Essentially, as this warm air rises, this causes an area of lower air pressure below."

This process starts the "engine" of the storm. To fill in the low pressure area, air from surrounding areas with higher air pressure pushes in. "That 'new' air near the Earth's surface also gets heated by the warm ocean water so it also gets warmer and moister and then it rises," explains NASA.

With the warm air rising, the surrounding air swirls to take its place. Fed by the ocean's heat and water evaporation, the maelstrom of clouds and winds spins and becomes larger.

At the center of the swiftly rotating storm system, a calmer, low air pressure "eye" forms.

"Tropical cyclones usually weaken when they hit land, because they are no longer being 'fed' by the energy from the warm ocean waters," notes NASA. "However, when they move inland, they can drop many inches of rain causing flooding as well as wind damage before they die out completely."

Last month, for example, Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of rain on parts of Texas and Louisiana.

Florida is particularly hurricane-prone as a result of its location. Hurricanes form between 5 and 30 degrees latitude north of the Equator and typically move toward the west. Additionally, Florida has been identified as a particularly storm-vulnerable area as a result of the state's rapid growth in population. Florida has added 3.3 million people since the 2004 hurricane season, according to Stephen Strader, assistant professor of geography and the environment at Villanova University, in a note sent to Fox News.

The Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Hurricane Irma: The science of the deadly storm

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With Hurricane Irma battering the west coast of Florida, experts are explaining the science behind the deadly storm. The hurricane, which has left a trail of devastation across the Caribbean, made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the Florida Keys Sunday morning, before setting out on a path along Florida's western coast.

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The economic cost of Hurricane Irma could rise as high as $300bn (£227bn) as the storm lashes Florida, damaging homes, businesses and key crops including orange groves.

Analysts said some $2trn of property lay in the storm's path, and also pointed to the potential impact on US food prices. Florida is the second-largest produce grower in the US and the world's second-largest producer of orange juice.

Torsten Jeworrek, a member of the board of the German reinsurance giant Munich Re, said on Sunday that Irma was "a major event for Florida and also a major event for the insurance industry".

The hurricane has already unsettled the financial markets, sending insurance stocks falling and orange juice futures surging last week. The price of contracts for November deliveries of frozen orange juice concentrate spiked as investors feared the worst after the destruction Irma wrought in the Caribbean.

Barrie Cornes, an analyst at the stockbroker Panmure Gordon, put the overall economic cost at $300bn, with insurance firms potentially on the hook for between $100bn and $150bn when the clean-up operation gets under way.

Florida also grows other important crops including tomatoes, grapefruits, watermelons and sugar cane. Irma could wipe out as much as 20% of the state's citrus crop, an significant part of its economy, analysts have suggested.

Alan Konn of the Chicago-based commodity trading firm Price Asset Management said: "The damage to the orange crop is twofold, both short term disruption but also to the extent crops are completely destroyed."

Irma could also have a longer term impact because it takes a few years to grow an orange tree to production, which would limit supply for an extented period, he said in an interview on the financial website MarketWatch.

The insurance industry is still assessing the cost of Hurricane Harvey, which caused severe flooding in parts of Texas last month. Initial estimates suggest the final bill could be as much as $100bn. That compares with economic damage of $176bn inflicted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which included $82bn of insured losses, according to the Swiss Re Institute.

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Economic cost of Hurricane Irma 'could reach $300bn'

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The economic cost of Hurricane Irma could rise as high as $300bn (£227bn) as the storm lashes Florida, damaging homes, businesses and key crops including orange groves. Analysts said some $2trn of property lay in the storm's path, and also pointed to the potential impact on US food prices.

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MIAMI - Ready or not, Florida found itself face to face with Hurricane Irma's galloping winds and rains on Sunday, as evacuees and holdouts alike marked uneasy time in homes and shelters from the Keys to the Panhandle, tap-tapping their nearly-dead cellphones for news they were frantic to hear but helpless to change.

The hurricane rammed ashore at Cudjoe Key before whirling on the state's southwest and west coast on the first day of its sodden chug north, buckling two giant construction cranes in Miami and rotating others like clock hands, snacking on trees and power lines, and interrupting millions of lives.

An apocalyptic forecast had already forced one of the largest evacuations in American history. Now it was time to find out what the storm would do - and whether the heavily populated cities of Naples, Fort Myers, St. Petersburg and Tampa were prepared.

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face," Mayor Bob Buckhorn of Tampa said at a Sunday news conference, paraphrasing the boxer, Mike Tyson. "Well, we're about to get punched in the face."

Having flattened a string of Caribbean islands and strafed Puerto Rico and Cuba over the last week as a dangerous Category 4 and 5 storm, Irma was downgraded on Sunday afternoon to Category 2, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center said that while the storm was weakening, it was "expected to remain a powerful hurricane," with maximum sustained winds near 110 miles per hour, down from 130 m.p.h. On Monday, it was set to spin over northern Florida, with Georgia next in line.

The sea was Irma's ally in destruction. In Key Largo, it annexed backyard pools. In Miami, it poured a salt river down Biscayne Boulevard, the city's main artery. In Naples and Tampa Bay, it pulled back from the shoreline, leaving waters so shallow that unwary dogs could splash around what remained. But that was only a prelude to a violent return: When the wind changed, scientists warned, the water would hurl itself right back to where it was, and then some.

Three deaths were reported in Florida after the storm's arrival on Sunday, adding to a death toll of at least 27 from its Caribbean rampage. Nearly 5 million people in Florida were without power, officials said on Sunday night.

Officials along the Gulf Coast had believed they would be spared the worst of the assault until the storm's trajectory took an unfavorable westward bounce late in the week. After a Saturday spent hastily converting fortified buildings into shelters, they were hurrying the final preparations into place on Sunday.

Curfews were declared in Collier County, which includes Naples, and in Tampa, and officials said they would not be lifted until the storm cleared. Shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday, the Tampa police called officers off the streets as the city confronted consistent wind gusts of more than 40 m.p.h. The westbound lanes on two of the three bridges connecting Tampa with St. Petersburg were closed.

Lest any humans decide to take the weather into their own hands, the sheriff's office in Pasco County, north of Tampa Bay, was telling local residents not to shoot weapons at the hurricane.

"You won't make it turn around," the sheriff's office tweeted, "& it will have very dangerous side effects."

Midafternoon in Ft. Myers, it was hard to tell which was worse, the wind or the rain.

The wind whipped the tops of palm trees around like pom-poms in the hands of a cheerleader. At one Ft. Myers hotel, the rain pelted the building with such force that it came into rooms around window frames, stains spreading ever wider on the carpet.

But the Keys, a small scattering of islands off Florida's southern tip, met Irma first.

Images showed entire houses under water. The flooding in Key Largo had small boats bobbing in the streets next to furniture and refrigerators like rubber toys in a bathtub. Shingles were kidnapped from roofs; swimming pools dissolved into the ocean.

"Still whiteout," John Huston, a resident who had stayed, wrote in a text message to The Associated Press around lunchtime on Sunday. "Send cold beer."

Local authorities were still waiting out the storm before determining the extent of the flooding and damage. But one of Irma's casualties was indisputable: the roof of the Key Largo building that local emergency operations officials were using after they fled their headquarters in Marathon had blown off.

On Key West, by contrast, one resident who was able to speak to a reporter by landline described streets pocked with shutters, windows and branches, but no flooding or ravaged houses. The resident, an 81-year-old artist named Richard Peter Matson who has lived in an old townhouse there since 1980, had decided to shelter in his home against all advice.

"If anything was going to happen," Mr. Matson said, "I wanted to be here to take care of it."

Those who did evacuate should not come back until local officials had had a chance to inspect the 42 bridges that connect the Keys to each other and to the mainland, said Cammy Clark, a county spokeswoman. As a precaution, officials were asking residents to boil water.

At least two people had died in the Keys as the storm announced itself, including a man whose truck wound up wrapped around a pole after he drove in tropical force winds on Saturday, Ms. Clark said. Another person died Sunday at one of the emergency shelters that were set up at the last minute for people who had yet to evacuate. The cause of death was unclear.

Irma was capricious. The residents of the Miami area, once projected to bear the worst of it, seemed at some points on Sunday to be suffering more from the fidgets than anything else.

As power vanished, their cellphones became their only tether to news, family and friends. When their cellphone batteries died, they dashed out to their cars to recharge.

Yamile Castella and her husband, Ramon, both Miami natives, spent Sunday reading, listening to "Hamilton" and watching "Wonder Woman" until the wind gusts intensified enough to throw half an avocado tree at their house. All the while, Ms. Castella was juggling four chats on WhatsApp - a rowing group, a running group, and two family groups, everyone trading stories about the highest gusts, who was eating what, who was doing what.

"We feel like we're not alone," she said.

To the north, most could not yet afford to relax.

By Sunday afternoon, more than half of the 45 shelters in Hillsborough County, which contains Tampa, had filled, including a shelter for people with special medical needs that had sprung up on the floor of the Sun Dome stadium at the University of South Florida. There were nearly 800 people there, including patients, volunteers, nurses and doctors, and they were out of cots and pillows. Mike Wagner, the shelter's manager, had to tell a woman and her family that there was no room.

"We just had to tell her, you have to go back home and hunker down," Mr. Wagner said. "It's a patient with five family members and a pet. It's a sad state of affairs, but you have to draw some limits."

The floor of the stadium, which is usually the home of the university's basketball and volleyball teams, was now a patchwork of cots - 435 of them - and medical devices. Patients were hooked into oxygen machines and tucked under plaid or striped blankets. There was a special section for hospice patients, and more cots lined the hallways.

Mr. Wagner's main worry was trying to ration precious time with the electrical outlets. It was becoming nearly impossible to accommodate new patients who needed electricity around the clock to power their medical equipment.

"We're physically going to have to unplug someone, we're telling them, you have to go back home," Mr. Wagner said. "I don't even know how that works for them. They'll have to find some place. But I can't unplug you, if you need oxygen, just to plug someone else in."

John Hawrsk, 67, was caring for his 96-year-old mother, whom he was keeping slightly sedated so she would stay calm.

"She gets kind of panicky, there's a little confusion," Mr. Hawrsk said. "Try to keep her eyes closed, try to get her to sleep as much as she can on her own."

North of Irma's swirl, in Orlando, searchers, canine handlers, doctors and communications experts had come from as far as Los Angeles to help.

Warn your families that Hurricane Irma could end communications home for days, Chuck Ruddell, a member of California Task Force 1, told his teammates. Accept that the team, which worked the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, might be sleeping at high schools and fairgrounds for weeks more. And prepare to make snap decisions about who to save first.

Speaking in shorthand, the men and women checked their eight boats, three tractor-trailers and other equipment. They scanned maps of Florida communities. They watched the news.

Then they, too, had nothing more to do but wait.

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Frances Robles, Lizette Alvarez and Vivian Yee

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Irma Roars in. And an Entire State Shakes and Shudders.

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MIAMI - Ready or not, Florida found itself face to face with Hurricane Irma's galloping winds and rains on Sunday, as evacuees and holdouts alike marked uneasy time in homes and shelters from the Keys to the Panhandle, tap-tapping their nearly-dead cellphones for news they were frantic to hear but helpless to change.