Hurricane Irma walloped Cuba’s northern coast on Saturday as a Category 5 storm, as millions of Florida residents were ordered to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left catastrophic destruction in its wake.
Irma
struck Camaguey Archipelago with
160 mph (260 kph) winds early on
Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, after upgrading
the storm late on Friday to its most powerful classification.
Irma,
one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, was expected to hit
Florida on Sunday morning, bringing massive damage from wind and
flooding to the fourth-largest state by population.
The
scenes along Cuba’s north central coast were gradually coming to
resemble the horrors of those of other Caribbean islands over the last
week as Irma barreled in for a direct hit at Ciego de Avila province
around midnight.
Choppy seas, grey skies,
sheets of rain, bending palm trees, huge waves crashing over sea walls
and downed power lines filled state-run television’s evening news cast.
Irma
was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 10 feet (3
meters) to parts of Cuba’s northern coast and the central and
northwestern Bahamas.
Meteorologists warned
that by Saturday morning scenes of far greater devastation were sure to
emerge as Irma worked her way along the northern coast westward through
Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara provinces where it is forecast to turn
north toward Florida.
(The Reuters)
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