Rains from monster Hurricane Irma begin hitting Puerto Rico
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Heavy rain and historic, 185-mph winds lashed the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico's northeast coast Wednesday as Hurricane Irma roared through Caribbean islands on its way to a possible devastating hit on Florida.
The strongest Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever measured destroyed homes and flooded streets across a chain of small islands in the northern Caribbean, passing directly over Barbuda and leaving the island of some 1,700 people incommunicado.
This is only the second time since satellites started tracking storms about 40 years ago that one maintained 185 mph winds for more than 24 hours, said Colorado State University meteorology professor Phil Klotzbach. The other was the massive killer typhoon Haiyan that killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines in 2013.
"It's a humdinger," he said.
"This thing is a buzzsaw; I'm glad Floridians are taking it very seriously," Klotzbach said. "This is going to be a bad storm. I don't see any way out of it."
