Bethany Kellam walks onto the southend beach of Tybee Island, Ga., Monday, Sept., 11, 2017. The National Weather Service placed most of Georgia under a tropical storm warning. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton) (Associated Press) 
 
 ATLANTA (AP) — Irma weakened to a still-deadly tropical storm as it swirled beyond Florida, killing at least three people in Georgia, flooding the coast, sending trees crashing onto homes and forcing the world's busiest airport in Atlanta to cancel hundreds of flights. 
 
 The former hurricane remained an immense, 415-mile (668-kilometer) wide storm as its center moved on from Florida Monday afternoon, giving its still-formidable gusts and drenching rains a far reach. 
 
 Some 540,000 people were ordered to evacuate days earlier from Savannah and the rest of Georgia's coast. Irma sent 4 feet of ocean water into downtown Charleston, South Carolina, as the storm's center passed 250 miles (400 kilometers) away. City officials urged residents to stay off the streets. 
 
 In Atlanta, people nervously watched towering oak trees as the city, 250 miles inland, experienced its first tropical storm warning. 
 
 The body of a 62-year-old man who climbed a ladder behind his home was found under debris on the roof of his shed in southwest Georgia, where winds topped 40 mph (65 kph), Worth County sheriff's spokeswoman Kannetha Clem said. His wife had called 911 saying he'd had a heart attack. 
 
 "He was lodged between two beams and had a little bit of debris on top of him," Clem said. "He was on the roof at the height of the storm." 
 
 Another man, in his 50s, was killed just outside Atlanta when a tree fell on his house, Sandy Springs police Sgt. Sam Worsham said. 
 
 And a woman died when a tree fell on a vehicle in a private driveway, according to the website of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office. 
 
 Charles Saxon, 57, became South Carolina's first recorded death when he was struck by a tree limb while clearing debris outside his home in Calhoun Falls amid wind gusts of about 40 mph, according to a statement from Abbeville County Coroner Ronnie Ashley. 
 
 Communities along Georgia's coast were swamped by storm surge and rainfall arriving at high tide Monday afternoon. On Tybee Island east of Savannah, Holland Zellers was grabbing a kayak to reach his mother in a home near the beach. 
 
 "In the street right now, the water is knee-to-waist deep," Zeller said. 
 
 Tybee Island City Manager Shawn Gillen said waters were receding quickly, but many of the 3,000 residents' homes were flooded. 
 
 "I don't think people who have lived here a long time have ever seen flooding this bad," Gillen said. 
 
 The tidal surge sent damaged boats rushing more than three blocks onto downtown streets in St. Marys, just north of the Georgia-Florida state line, St. Marys Police Lt. Shannon Brock said. 
 
 Downtown Atlanta hotels remained full of evacuees. Many milled about the CNN Center, escaping crowded hotel rooms in search of open restaurants. Many were glued to storm coverage on the atrium's big screen. Parents pointed out familiar sites, now damaged, to their children. 
 
 "We've been here since Friday night, and we're ready to go home" to Palm Beach County, Florida, Marilyn Torrence said as her 4-year-old colored. 
 
 FORECAST 
 
 Irma weakened into a tropical depression late Monday, and the National Hurricane Center discontinued all storm surge and tropical weather watches and warnings related to the storm. Meteorologist Keith Stellman said Atlanta's airport recorded sustained winds of 45 mph (72 kph) with gusts up to 64 mph (103 kph). The hurricane center forecast Irma to drop 5 inches to 8 inches (13 to 20 centimeters) or rain across South Carolina and the northern regions of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi over the next two days. 
 
 TRANSIT 
 
 About 800 flights had been canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which remained operational Monday, even as many planes turned corners of the tarmac into a parking lot. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority suspended all bus and rail services Monday but said it would resume limited service Tuesday morning with plans to expand service as weather conditions improve. Downtown Atlanta's streets were eerily quiet, with restaurants, businesses and schools closed. Traffic flowed easily on the city's interstates, normally a sea of brake lights during rush hours. 
 
 POWER 
 
 Nearly 1.5 million Georgia Power and EMC customers were without power. Alabama Power reported 45,000 outages. Utilities said thousands of employees were prepared to respond, but repairs could take several days. 
 
 COASTS 
 
 Georgia's coast was largely empty less than a year after Hurricane Matthew caused $500 million in damage and killed three people last October. In Charleston, South Carolina, the ocean topped the Battery wall that typically protects downtown. Only Hurricane Hugo's direct hit in 1989 and a 1940 hurricane that hit a short way down the coast pushed higher seas. 
 
 Smaller communities also were inundated — the entire South Carolina town of Edisto Beach, population 530, was covered with several feet of water, Mayor Jane Darby said, despite a $17 million dune restoration project following Matthew's destruction. 
 
 TREES 
 
 Atlanta Parks and Recreation Commissioner Amy Phuong said six crews were responding to fallen trees around the city as winds and rain intensified. About half the city's land area is covered by trees — more than most urban areas. Savannah's winds caused palm trees to bend and sway. And much of Alabama has pine trees that can snap in high winds. 
 
 Firefighters were rescuing people from homes struck by trees near the Florida line in Lowndes County, Georgia. With wind gusts reaching 70 mph (112 kph), authorities imposed a daytime curfew for the 112,000 residents of Lowndes County, which includes Valdosta, county spokeswoman Paige Dukes said. 
 
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 Bynum reported from Savannah. Associated Press reporters Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Seanna Adcox in Columbia, South Carolina; and Kate Brumback and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this story. 
 
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 HURRICANE NEWSLETTER — Get the best of the AP's all-formats reporting on Irma and Harvey in your inbox: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb ||||| CLOSE Hurricane Irma took aim at heavily populated areas of central Florida on Monday as it carved a path of destruction through the state. Video provided by Reuters Newslook 
 
 Roofing and siding litter the streets at Naples Estates trailer park in East Naples, Fla., on Sept. 11, 2017. (Photo: Rodney White, The Register via the USA TODAY Network) 
 
 MIAMI — Mighty, massive Irma finally weakened, chainsaws buzzed and 30,000 utility workers scrambled to restore power to battered Florida on Monday as the state slowly came back to life amid the devastation of the historic storm. 
 
 Irma, which smashed onto the state Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with 130-mph winds, weakened to a tropical storm Monday after hammering the state with roof-ripping winds and driving rain. 
 
 The sun peeked out over much of the state, but Irma wasn't finished. Gushing floodwaters paralyzed wide areas. Downed trees, power lines and other storm debris blocked roads across the state. 
 
 Florida's Emergency Response Team said 65% of utility customers were without power early Monday. Every county from Key West to the Georgia line was affected. White House national security adviser Tom Bossert, speaking in Washington, urged evacuees not to go home until they are told it is safe to do so. 
 
 "We can have power down in homes for ... weeks," Bossert said. "This isn't over yet." 
 
 More: Hurricane Irma: Where it is now and what we know 
 
 Hurricane Irma: Complete coverage from the USA TODAY Network 
 
 Gov. Rick Scott visited storm-ravaged parts of the state Monday, telling reporters that what he saw was "horrible." 
 
 Scott warned that storm surge was causing record flooding in Jacksonville and other cities in northeastern Florida. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry asked residents who are safe to let friends and family members know. 
 
 "We are getting calls asking about loved ones," Curry tweeted. 
 
 The Florida Keys took a severe beating. Irma ripped through the island chain hours before its second landfall Sunday on Marco Island. The storm roared north, wide enough to lash both coasts with wind, rain and ominous floodwaters. Millions evacuated ahead of the storm, and more than 585 shelters across the state were housing more than 200,000 people Monday. 
 
 Four “last resort” shelters set up in the Keys will become more permanent, with services such as food and supply distribution. Scott flew over the area and said flood damage was extensive. Water and sewer systems weren't working and there was no power. 
 
 "My heart goes out to the people in the Keys," Scott said. "I just hope everybody survived. It's horrible what we saw." 
 
 In Everglades City, on the Gulf Coast 30 miles east of Marco Island, trees were toppled and storm fronts blown out. Parts of the city were underwater after a storm surge as high as 8 feet. 
 
 "I've never seen it this bad," said Lee Kidder, manager of the Captain's Table hotel and restaurant, where water swamped his downstairs apartments and trees smashed the pool patio. "But it could have been way worse." 
 
 Naples, 15 miles north of Marco Island, fared a bit better. Crews saw no major structural damage and only minimal flooding in their initial post-storm tours, Mayor Bill Barnett said. 
 
 “Everything is preliminary, but the real bright side — if there is one — is that we didn’t get 15 feet of storm surge,” Barnett said. “That would have been catastrophic.” 
 
 One Naples man died as an indirect result of the storm, however. Evacuee Richard Koff, 91, was walking through an Interstate 75 rest area in Georgia when he was the victim of a fatal hit-and-run crash Sunday. 
 
 Utilities warned that it could take weeks to fully restore electricity to the state's 21 million people. The Florida HIghway Patrol was escorting utility convoys around the state, and more than 30,000 workers were laboring to restore power. 
 
 At 11 p.m. ET Monday, the storm was centered about 95 miles south by southwest of Atlanta, driving maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Irma was forecast to continue to weaken as it rolled through Georgia and beyond Tuesday. 
 
 Georgia was reporting power outages for almost 600,000 homes and businesses Monday; South Carolina had almost 100,000 outages. 
 
 Still, many areas were expecting worse than they got. 
 
 The Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area had braced for a direct hit that never quite came. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, saying the local storm surge apparently will not be as bad as feared, lifted the city curfew Monday. 
 
 "We really dodged a bullet," Buckhorn said. 
 
 Miami-Dade County, spared a direct hit when Irma spun west, still was staggered. About 80% of homes lost power and many roads remained impassable, but lifelong residents who know what hurricanes can do knew they'd been spared. 
 
 "This is great for us, but bad for the west coast," said Alex Silva, 41, who was using a machete and a rake to clear the street outside his Coral Gables home Monday morning. 
 
 "I would feel like a jerk if I didn't get out and do something to help," Silva said. 
 
 Miami International Airport hoped to reopen for limited passenger service Tuesday. Irma's high winds pushed water through window seals and roof joints, causing minor flooding through the sprawling complex. Even the war room where airport managers met Monday morning was damaged by water. 
 
 "Nobody wants to get planes in and out more than me," CEO Emilio Gonzalez said. "But we can't just flip a switch." 
 
 In Palm Bay, 175 miles north of MIami, Irma's howling winds punched a hole in the roof of The Shack Seafood Restaurant, tossing the screened porch atop the building like a folded pancake. Jean Zemkoski, who has owned the restaurant for 46 years, was concerned that employees might be without work for weeks. 
 
 "When we left, everything was secure," said . "I came back this morning and this is what I see." 
 
 In Western North Carolina, almost 13,000 residents were without power Monday night as a result of the storm. The residents represented more than half of the 22,000 Duke Energy customers who did not have power as of 7:30 p.m. ET Sunday, according to Duke Energy. 
 
 Gomez reported from Miami, Bacon from McLean, Va. Contributing: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY; Arek L. Sarkissian, Tallahassee Democrat; Joseph Cranney, Brett Murphy, and Tim Aten, Naples Daily News; Rick Neale and Dave Berman, Florida Today; Nicole Rodriguez, The Stuart (Fla.) News; Jennifer Bowman, Asheville Citizen-Times 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xYNpmQ ||||| Customers at a Home Depot in South Miami Dade buy building materials to secure their property in anticipation of Hurricane Irma early Friday, Sept. 8, 2017 in Miami, Fla. The National Hurricane Center... (Associated Press) 
 
 MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Irma's relentless advance on Florida narrowed the window for residents to get to safety, with the latest forecasts shifting landfall southwest of the heavily populated Miami metro area. 
 
 The enormous storm regained Category 5 status late Friday as winds hit 160 mph (260 kph). Forecasters expect the storm to be near the Florida Keys on Sunday morning and approach the state's southwest coast by that afternoon. 
 
 In one of the country's largest evacuations, about 5.6 million people in Florida — more than one-quarter of the state's population — were ordered to leave, and another 540,000 were ordered out on the Georgia coast. Authorities opened hundreds of shelters for people who did not leave. Hotels as far away as Atlanta filled up with evacuees. 
 
 "If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk," Florida Gov. Rick Scott said. 
 
 The governor urged everybody in the Keys, where forecasters expect the storm to hit first, to get out. 
 
 Ray Scarborough and girlfriend Leah Etmanczyk left their home in Big Pine Key and fled north with her parents and three big dogs to stay with relatives in Orlando. Scarborough was 12 when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992 and remembers lying on the floor in a hallway as the storm nearly ripped the roof off his house. 
 
 "They said this one is going to be bigger than Andrew. When they told me that, that's all I needed to hear," said Scarborough, now a 37-year-old boat captain. "That one tore everything apart." 
 
 Their house in the Keys, up on 6-foot (1.8-meter) stilts, has flooded before. 
 
 "This isn't out first rodeo. Andrew was a wicked storm. Wilma was a wicked storm. This one is going to be worse. Then we'll go home and rebuild, like we always do," said Etmanczyk, a 29-year-old teacher. 
 
 Forecasters adjusted the storm's potential track more toward the west coast of Florida, away from the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people, meaning "a less costly, a less deadly storm," University of Miami researcher Brian McNoldy said. 
 
 Nevertheless, forecasters warned that its hurricane-force winds were so wide they could reach from coast to coast, testing the nation's third-largest state, which has undergone rapid development and more stringent hurricane-proof building codes in the last decade or so. 
 
 "This is a storm that will kill you if you don't get out of the way," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said. "Everybody's going to feel this one." 
 
 Irma killed at least 20 people in the Caribbean and left thousands homeless as it devastated small resort islands known for their warm, turquoise water. 
 
 In Florida, gas shortages and gridlock plagued the evacuations, turning normally simple trips into tests of will. Parts of interstates 75 and 95 north were bumper-to-bumper, while very few cars drove in the southbound lanes. 
 
 "We're getting out of this state," said Manny Zuniga, who left his home in Miami at midnight Thursday to avoid the gridlock. "Irma is going to take all of Florida." 
 
 Despite driving overnight, he still took 12 hours to reach Orlando — a trip that normally takes four hours. From there, he and his wife, two children, two dogs and a ferret were headed to Arkansas. 
 
 Andrew razed Miami's suburbs with winds topping 165 mph (265 kph), damaging or blowing apart over 125,000 homes. Almost all mobile homes in its path were obliterated. The damage totaled $26 billion in Florida's most-populous areas. At least 40 people were killed in Florida. 
 
 Police in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Davie said a 57-year-old man who had been hired to install hurricane shutters Thursday morning died after falling about 15 feet (5 meters) from a ladder and hitting his head on a pool deck. The man's name wasn't immediately released. 
 
 With winds that peaked at 185 mph (300 kph), Irma was once the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Galofaro reported from Orlando. Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein in Washington; Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Terrance Harris in Orlando and David Fischer in Miami contributed to this report. 
 
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 HURRICANE NEWSLETTER — Get the best of the AP's all-formats reporting on Irma and Harvey in your inbox: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb ||||| (In Sept. 13 item, updates to correct spelling of the last name of Michael Beason from Benson, in 19th paragraph and throughout) 
 
 By Andrew Innerarity and Ricardo Ortiz 
 
 HOLLYWOOD, Fla./SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott vowed on Wednesday that the state would aggressively investigate how six people died at a nursing home that lost power when Hurricane Irma rampaged through the region, as millions coped with another day without electricity. 
 
 The death toll from the storm approached 80 as officials continued to assess the damage after Irma powered through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record and slammed into the Florida Keys archipelago with sustained winds of up to 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour). 
 
 Irma killed at least 36 people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to officials. Some 4.2 million homes and businesses, or about 9 million people, were without power on Wednesday in Florida and nearby states. 
 
 Police opened a criminal investigation at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, north of Miami, where three elderly residents were found dead at the facility and three later died at a nearby hospital, officials said. 
 
 “I am going to work to aggressively demand answers on how this tragic event took place,” Scott said in a statement. “This situation is unfathomable. Every facility that is charged with caring for patients must take every action and precaution to keep their patients safe.” 
 
 More than 100 patients at the nursing home were evacuated on Wednesday along with 18 patients from a nearby facility that was cleared due to the criminal investigation, Hollywood officials said. 
 
 “Most of the patients have been treated for respiratory distress, dehydration and heat-related issues,” Randy Katz, a spokesman for Memorial Regional Hospital, told reporters. Memorial Regional is located across the street from the nursing home. 
 
 Police were first called to the facility at about 4:30 a.m. but did not arrive until after 6 a.m., officials said. 
 
 The center had been without air conditioning, Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief told reporters on Wednesday. 
 
 “The building has been sealed off and we are conducting a criminal investigation inside,” Hollywood Police Chief Tomas Sanchez told reporters on Wednesday. “It was very hot on the second floor.” 
 
 Florida Power & Light said it had provided power to some parts of the Hollywood nursing home but that the facility was not on a county top tier list for emergency power restoration. 
 
 The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills is pictured in Hollywood, Florida, U.S., September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri 
 
 NEW DAMAGE ESTIMATES 
 
 Irma caused about $25 billion in insured losses, including $18 billion in the United States and $7 billion in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Co estimated on Wednesday. 
 
 The Florida Keys were particularly hard hit, with federal officials saying that 25 percent of homes were destroyed and 65 percent suffered major damage when Irma barreled ashore on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane. 
 
 Most residents had left by then and police have barred re-entry to most of the Keys to allow more time to restore electricity and medical service and bring water, food and fuel. 
 
 Slideshow (13 Images) 
 
 “I don’t have a house. I don’t have a job. I have nothing,” said Mercedes Lopez, 50, whose family fled north from the Keys town of Marathon on Friday and rode out the storm at an Orlando hotel, only to learn their home was destroyed, along with the gasoline station where Lopez worked. 
 
 President Donald Trump is due to visit the region on Thursday. 
 
 ‘EVERYTHING IS GONE’ 
 
 Irma wreaked total devastation in parts of the Caribbean, where at least 43 people have died. 
 
 People who fled their homes in hard-hit islands including St. Martin and the U.S. Virgin Islands that were all but cut off from the world for days arrived in San Juan late Tuesday. 
 
 Michael Beason, 65, of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said he lost everything. 
 
 “My house, my business, both my vehicles, everything is gone,” said Beason, who was stopping in San Juan before continuing to Boston to seek refuge with his wife’s brother. 
 
 “But we have life. We rode out that horrible storm in a shower that I had reinforced after Hurricane Marilyn,” Beason added. “I told the man (who installed the shower), I told him, ‘If the hurricane takes the rest of my house, I want this shower sticking up out of that slab like the last tooth in the mouth of a bum. And sure enough that’s what’s left.” 
 
 Irma hit the United States about two weeks after Hurricane Harvey plowed into Houston, killing about 60 and causing some $180 billion in damage, mostly from flooding.
– Irma moved into the Southeast on Monday as a tropical storm, not a hurricane, but it was still deadly: Authorities say there were at least three storm-related deaths in Georgia and one in South Carolina, along with flooding in cities including Jacksonville, Fla., and Charleston, SC. Police in Georgia say the storm's victims include a man killed when a tree fell in his house, a man blown from his roof, and a woman who died when a tree fell on a vehicle, the AP reports. In South Carolina, a falling tree limb killed a man. Irma has now weakened from a tropical storm to a tropical depression which is forecast to drop 5 inches to 8 inches of rain over South Carolina, northern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi in the coming days. The latest: Irma, which put Atlanta under a tropical storm warning for the first time, gave Georgia a hammering that caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights and left at least 1.3 million people without power early Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott advised patience for evacuees anxious to return home, CNN reports. "Don't think just because this thing passed, you can run home. We've got downed power lines all across the state," he said Monday. "We've got roads that are impassible still across the state. We've got debris all over the state." The hard-hit Florida Keys will partially reopen on Tuesday to allow residents to assess damage, Reuters reports. Navy ships including the USS Abraham Lincoln have been sent to distribute food and evacuate some of the 10,000 residents who rode out the storm. Authorities say they aren't sure how many people were killed by the hurricane. The damage in most of Florida was not as catastrophic as feared, but Irma left an estimated 12 million people, or two-thirds of the state's population, without power, the Washington Post reports. Authorities warn that some customers could be without power for weeks if parts of the system need to be rebuilt. Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports will reopen Tuesday with limited service, the Miami Herald reports. Public schools in Miami, however, are closed until further notice, and Miami-Dade County is under a mandatory 7pm to 7am curfew. In Orlando, the storm claimed another victim Monday when a 51-year-old man was electrocuted by a downed power line in a park, the Orlando Sentinel reports. (Florida residents got their first look at the damage Monday.)