Hurricane Irma slightly weakens again en route to Florida
Irma weakens to Category 4 hurricane, as it threatens to reach Florida on Sunday; 5.6 million people have been asked to evacuate state, with Florida Gov. warning civilians that once storm hits, rescue teams will have no way of helping those left stranded.
Irma had briefly regained Category 5 strength late Friday, but now has maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (249 kph). Irma is about 245 miles (394 kilometers) from Miami and moving about 12 mph (19.3 kph) toward the west-northwest.
5.6 million people have been asked to evacuate Florida ahead of Hurricane Irma.
"We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen," Florida Governor Rick Scott told reporters. "If you're still in the Keys, get out now. We will quickly run out of good weather to evacuate." He warned that once the storm hits, rescue teams will have no way to help stranded civilians.
US President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was "a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential" and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump’s waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.
Irma regained Category 5 status late Friday. Thousands of people in the Caribbean fought desperately to find shelter or escape their storm-blasted islands, and more than 6 million people in Florida and Georgia were warned to leave their homes.
Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.
Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.
Irma is considered the strongest recorded hurricane to come out of the Atlantic and one of the hardest to hit the US. So far, 22 people were reported to have been killed by the storm, and 90 percent of all structures in the Caribbean island of Barbuda are said to have been demolished.
In addition to Barbuda, many residents and tourists were left reeling after the storm ravaged some of the world's most exclusive tropical playgrounds, known for their turquoise waters and lush green vegetation. Among them: St. Maarten, St. Barts, St. Thomas and Anguilla.
Meanwhile and also in the Atlantic, Hurricane Jose is a Category 4 hurricane, about 190 miles (306 kilometers) east-southeast of The Northern Leeward Islands, moving toward the islands at 13 mph (20.92 kph) with winds reaching 150 mph.
Earlier Saturday, Dutch marines dropped flyers from a helicopter warning beleaguered inhabitants on the devastated nation of St. Maarten to head to shelters as Hurricane Jose barreled through the Caribbean.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Katia made landfall late Friday north of Tecolutla, Mexico and weakened to a tropical storm. By early Saturday morning it was 135 miles (217 kilometers) south of Tampico, Mexico, moving sluggishly at only 2 mph (3.2 kph) near the Sierra Madre Mountains with maximum winds of 40 mph (64.4 kph). It was expected to weaken further throughout the day.
