SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CBSNewYork/AP) — The eye of Hurricane Irma is moving west-northwest off the Dominican Republic’s northern coast as the Category 5 storm continues its destructive path over the Caribbean.

As of 5 a.m. Thursday, the hurricane was centered about 95 miles north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and is moving at about 17 mph with maximum sustained winds near 180 mph.

Irma skirted by Puerto Rico overnight. The island dodged the eye of the storm, but Irma still left much of the island in the dark. Officials there say nearly a million people have no power and around 50,000 don’t have water.

To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm’s record 185 mph winds earlier Wednesday, while people in Florida rushed to get ready for a possible direct hit on the Miami area.

Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma, and information on damage trickled out.

On St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, neighborhoods are underwater.

Barbuda, where the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday, took a major hit. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne nearly every building was damaged by the storm.

“What I saw was heart wrenching,” he said. “I mean, absolutely devastating.”

He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery would take months, if not years.

Significant damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. Photos and video circulating on social media showed major damage to the airport in Philipsburg and the coastal village of Marigot heavily flooded.

France sent emergency food and water there and to the French island of St. Bart’s, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity.

President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, authorities say at least one person has died in the northeast Caribbean island of Anguilla, raising the death toll of Irma to at least 10. The Caribbean Disaster Management Agency reported the death early Thursday and said 90 percent of roads in Anguilla are impassible.

France’s Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb, told Franc Info that at least eight people have died and another 23 were injured in the French Caribbean island territories of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy. That number is expected to rise.

In Barbuda, a 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as passes just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, nears the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirts Cuba on Friday night into Saturday. It will then likely head north toward Florida.

The storm is expected to hit Florida sometime Sunday, and Gov. Rick Scott said he planned to activate 7,000 National Guard soldiers by Friday. He warned that Irma is “bigger, faster and stronger” than Hurricane Andrew, which wiped out entire neighborhoods in south Florida 25 years ago.

Experts worried that Irma could rake the entire Florida east coast from Miami to Jacksonville and then head into Savannah, Georgia, and the Carolinas, striking highly populated and developed areas.

“This could easily be the most costly storm in U.S. history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

On Miami Beach, mandatory evacuations have been ordered for high risk areas along the coast. For everyone else, it is being strongly suggested to get out of Irma’s way as quickly as possible.

“It is life threatening,” Scott said. “This is not a storm you can sit and wait through.”

Some residents trying to get out are sitting and waiting in hours long lines at gas stations, often times to find the pumps have run dry.

“I passed two gas stations on the way here that were both empty,” driver Robbie Hippensteel said.

For those looking to evacuate by air, American Airlines says it will wind down operations on Friday afternoon in southern Florida before completely cancelling flights throughout the weekend.</s>(CNN) — Reports of fatalities and widespread damage in northern Caribbean islands began to emerge Wednesday night after Hurricane Irma blasted through, packing devastating winds and rain.

“Barbuda right now is literally a rubble,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda told an interviewer with ABS TV/Radio Antigua.

“The entire housing stock was damaged,” Browne said after visiting the island of 1,800. “It is just a total devastation.”

Irma killed at least three people, destroyed government buildings, tore roofs from houses and left islands without power or communications. St. Martin/St. Maarten and St. Barts also felt the fury of the Category 5 storm, one of the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic, according to updates from the region.

Browne said there currently is no water or phone service for Barbuda residents. He said one fatality, an infant, had been confirmed.

Communication was disrupted after winds snapped a cell tower in two on the island.

Irma damaged Barbuda’s lone airport, which will now force officials to ferry supplies by boat and helicopter from Antigua. Browne estimated rebuilding would cost about $100 million.

“I have never seen any such destruction on a per capita basis compared to what I saw in Barbuda this afternoon,” Browne told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

‘My family has nowhere to go’

Charles Fernandez, minister of foreign affairs and international trade for Antigua and Barbuda, said that destruction on Barbuda was “upwards of 90%.”

One woman told ABS TV/Radio her family of seven, including a 2-month-old infant, crammed into a closet before the hurricane force winds. The storm ripped the roof off, and they huddled together until rescuers reached them. Her home is destroyed, the woman said.

“My main concern now is, how we’re going to survive after this,” the Barbuda resident said.

One man, whose home was also destroyed, echoed the woman’s concerns.

“My family has nowhere to go,” he told ABS/TV Radio.

Another Barbuda resident it felt like “the whole house was ripping apart.” The woman called 911 and authorities told the family to get in the closet or the bathroom.

“I start praying and I ask God to just come and help me get out of this house because the house was like tearing apart,” she told ABS TV/Radio Antigua. “It was like sucking us up, because we were holding on the bathroom door.”

At least two people died and two others were seriously injured on St. Barts and St. Martin, said French Overseas Affairs Minister Annick Girardin. The islands are French overseas collectivities.

Irma destroyed government buildings, tore roofs from houses and left northern Caribbean islands without power or communications.

“In terms of material damage, the four strongest buildings on the island of St. Martin have been destroyed,” which meant that weaker structures likely had been damaged or destroyed, French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb told reporters.

Xaverius van der Hoek, who lives on St. Maarten, said his home — which has a concrete roof and hurricane shutters — was spared, but many other homes suffered damage.

“There is a sense of dread … utility poles are down everywhere. There is no power and no public water and it appears it may take a long time to restore,” he told CNN. “From my balcony alone, I count at least 24 homes and apartment building with either partial or entire roofs missing.”

Van der Hoek said he get power from a generator. But he only has fuel to last about a week.

The firehouse in St. Barts was under a meter of water and is out of service, according to an update posted to Twitter by the government of the neighboring French territory, Guadeloupe.

“Firefighters have taken shelter in an upstairs room. A number of houses have suffered damage, roofs have been ripped out. Total loss of electricity,” it said.

The mayor’s office in St. Martin has been damaged, the update from Guadeloupe said, and the mayor and 23 others took shelter in a concrete-walled room.

The island has been without electricity since 6 a.m. local time, it said.

Virginia Barreras told CNN she was riding out the storm in a hotel in St. Martin.

“The palm trees are bent over and (I) can’t see anything but white,” she said before Irma’s core passed over the island. “The walls shake when the wind blows hard, and we can hear debris being thrown around.”

Footage posted to YouTube by PTZtv.com from Maho Beach, St. Maarten, showed winds so powerful they reportedly took out the webcam filming the scene. St. Maarten is the Dutch part of the island.

Irma’s core, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph — well above the 157 mph threshold of a Category 5 — slammed Barbuda before hitting St. Martin and Anguilla.

Keithley Meade, director of the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services, said, “Barbuda was heavily damaged by Irma. So badly damaged that there is no communication, so we don’t know how much.”

After slamming St. Martin, Anguilla and St. Kitts and Nevis, the storm was expected to move near the British Virgin Islands and northern US Virgin Islands.

Forecasters warn that Irma’s likely path will be near the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday. The storm is expected to pass just north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, bringing hurricane force winds to northern sections of the island, likely causing mudslides and flooding.

In the Bahamas, emergency evacuations have been ordered for six southern islands — Mayaguana, Inagua, Crooked Island, Acklins, Long Cay and Ragged Island.</s>Powerful Hurricane Irma made landfall today on the island of Barbuda as it barreled its way across the Caribbean, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The eye of the rare Category Five storm passed over Barbuda around 2 am (0600 GMT) packing winds gusting at up to 295 kph, the center said.

The storm is headed northwest toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, with potential for coastal storm surges of up to six meters above normal tide levels, it added.</s>SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Fearsome Hurricane Irma cut a path of devastation across the northern Caribbean, leaving at least 10 dead and thousands homeless after destroying buildings and uprooting trees on a track Thursday that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida.

The most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever, Irma weakened only slightly Thursday morning and remained a powerful Category 5 storm with winds of 180 mph (285 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

The storm was increasingly likely to rip into heavily populated South Florida early Sunday, prompting the governor to declare an emergency and officials to impose mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the Miami metro area and the Florida Keys. Forecasters said it could punish the entire Atlantic coast of Florida and rage on into Georgia and South Carolina.

“This could easily be the most costly storm in U.S. history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, alluding to the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told France Info radio that eight had died and 23 injured in the country’s Caribbean island territories, and he said the toll on Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy could be higher because rescue teams have yet to finish their inspection of the islands.

“The reconnaissance will really start at daybreak,” Collomb said.

At a news conference, Collomb also said 100,000 food rations have been sent to the islands, the equivalent of four days of supplies.

“It’s a tragedy, we’ll need to rebuild both islands,” he said. “Most of the schools have been destroyed.”

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he will go to the islands has soon as weather conditions permit.

In the United Kingdom, the government said Irma inflicted “severe and in places critical” damage to the British overseas territory of Anguilla. Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said the Caribbean island took the full force of the hurricane. He told lawmakers on Thursday that the British Virgin islands have also suffered “severe damage.”

Irma blacked out much of Puerto Rico, raking the U.S. territory with heavy wind and rain while staying just out to sea, and it headed early Thursday toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm’s record 185 mph (298 kph) winds. Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma, and information on damage trickled out.

Nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday and about 60 percent of its roughly 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.

“It is just really a horrendous situation,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island.

He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery would take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.

One death also was reported in the nearby island of Anguilla, where officials reported extensive damage to the airport, hospitals, shelters and school and said 90 percent of roads are impassible, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

The agency also reported “major damage” to houses and commercial buildings in the British Virgin Islands.

On St. Thomas in the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands, Laura Strickling spent 12 hours hunkered down with her husband and 1-year-old daughter in a boarded-up basement apartment with no power as the storm raged outside. They emerged to find the lush island in tatters. Many of their neighbors’ homes were damaged and once-dense vegetation was largely gone.

“There are no leaves. It is crazy. One of the things we loved about St. Thomas is that it was so green. And it’s gone,” Strickling said. “It will take years for this community to get back on its feet.”

Significant damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. Photos and video circulating on social media showed major damage to the airport in Philipsburg and the coastal village of Marigot heavily flooded. France sent emergency food and water there and to the French island of St. Bart’s, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday the storm “caused widescale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.”

“There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark, in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world,” he said.

By Thursday morning, the center of the storm was about 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and was moving west-northwest near 17 mph (28 kph).

More than half the island of Puerto Rico was without power, leaving 900,000 in the dark and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said in the midst of the storm. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.

Puerto Rico’s public power company warned before the storm hit that some areas could be left without power from four to six months because its staff has been reduced and its infrastructure weakened by the island’s decade-long economic slump.

President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as passes just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, nears the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirts Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.

It will then likely head north toward Florida, where people were rushing to board up homes, fill cars with gasoline and find a route to safety.

Gov. Rick Scott, who has mobilized parts of the state’s National Guard, declared a state of emergency and asked the governors of Alabama and Georgia to waive trucking regulations so gasoline tankers can get fuel into Florida quickly to ease shortages.

An estimated 25,000 people or more left the Florida Keys after all visitors were ordered to clear out, causing bumper-to-bumper traffic on the single highway that links the chain of low-lying islands to the mainland.</s>(WTNH) — Lots of other families in our state are in the same boat on Wednesday, worrying for loved ones in Puerto Rico.

A Spanish-speaking radio station in Newington is helping to keep those families up to date by broadcasting live updates about what they’re hearing from people back in Puerto Rico.

You sit here and watch the big storm spreading on the screen and you see the video in from other islands so imagine having family right there and not being able to get in touch with them. You just have to sit and wait for the storm to pass.

One radio station in Newington is stepping in to help ease her fears.

“I tried to call my brother, but I couldn’t get in touch with him.”

As Hurricane Irma churns and blows in from Puerto Rico, the power is starting to go out in communities. Communication is lost, but at WRYM Radio, they have been keeping track of the storm and broadcasting any news they may have from Middletown to Hartford.

“We have two reports from two people who died in Puerto Rico, one was on the roof doing some repairs and fell off of the roof and the other one is a fisherman.”

Here at WRYM, one of the things they have are local contacts on the ground in Puerto Rico. They have family and friends of people they can call up to get direct information from so they can broadcast it out to those worried about their loved ones and can’t reach them. As the hurricane goes through and the communication count goes down, this becomes one of the primary ways people can get information.

“I got in touch with the Secretary of Education and she has her family here in the United States and they all worry about here, but she’s doing well.”

Right now, schools have been closed so they can open their doors as a shelter to take in refugees. According to reports from Puerto Rico, the north side of the island is being hit the worst, up in the mountains and people in Connecticut are concerned about their family back home.

“Are you getting a lot of people calling in on the studio line concerned? I have a lot of people calling me today, people concerned because some people want to go to Puerto Rico.”

It sounds crazy, people wanting to fly into the hurricane, but they’re so concerned about their family, about their friends, about their home country. They want to do anything they can to help.</s>Puerto Rico and other islands in the Lesser Antilles are preparing for Irma as it tracks dangerously close to the islands as a powerful Category 5 hurricane.

Some of the worst conditions will be felt in the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, and St. Kitts and Nevis Tuesday night into Wednesday. The eye of Irma may even pass directly over some of the northernmost islands.

“We are expecting very rough and dangerous surf along with damaging tropical-storm-force and hurricane-force winds over the northern Leeward Islands, and tropical-storm-force winds over the southern Leewards to perhaps the northern Windward Islands, mostly in gusts,” AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.

A state of emergency has already been declared in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as residents brace for the storm.





States of emergency declared in Caribbean, Florida ahead of 'extremely dangerous' Hurricane Irma 

Hurricane Irma to track toward US; Residents of East and Gulf coasts urged to prepare now 

Evacuation checklist: How to get your family out safely in the face of an imminent disaster FEMA has already arrived in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to provide assistance with preparing for Irma and to support ongoing operations. President Donald Trump has also approved Puerto Rico’s disaster declaration request. This will help the territory receive more funding and resources from the federal government because of Irma. 

 A 36-hour curfew is in effect for the entirety of the U.S. Virgin Islands, beginning at 6:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Multiple shelters will be open in St John, St. Thomas and St. Croix for people that need a place to stay as Irma impacts the island. Gov. Ricardo Rossello of Puerto Rico has asked President Donald Trump for a declaration of emergency ahead of the arrival of Irma. If the request is granted, it would open up federal resources to Puerto Rico. Gov. Kenneth Mapp of the U.S. Virgin Islands has also sent an emergency declaration request to the White House in preparation of Irma and its potentially devastating impacts on the islands. 

 Copy of the letter sent to @realdonaldtrump requesting a declaration of emergency for PR and FEMA resources in preparation for #Irma pic.twitter.com/EGnjU6CVah 

Commercial flights to and from the U.S. Virgin Islands have been canceled until further notice due to the approaching hurricane. “To ensure everyone’s safety, the request for postponed scheduled visits to our islands remains in effect until Hurricane Irma passes,” the U.S. Virgin Islands Commissioner of Tourism said. http://www.usviupdate.com/</s>Fearsome Hurricane Irma left at least 10 dead and thousands homeless amid a swathe of smashed buildings and uprooted trees, cutting a path of devastation across the northern Caribbean on Thursday on a track that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida.

The most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever, Irma weakened only slightly Thursday morning and remained a powerful Category 5 storm with winds of 180 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

The storm was increasingly likely to rip into heavily populated South Florida early Sunday, prompting the governor to declare an emergency and officials to impose mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the Miami metro area and the Florida Keys. Forecasters said it could punish the entire Atlantic coast of Florida and rage on into Georgia and South Carolina.

"This could easily be the most costly storm in U.S. history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago," said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, alluding to the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told France Info radio that eight had died and 23 injured in the country's Caribbean island territories, and he said the toll on Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy could be higher because rescue teams have yet to finish their inspection of the islands.

"The reconnaissance will really start at daybreak," Collomb said.

At a news conference, Collomb also said 100,000 food rations have been sent to the islands, the equivalent of four days of supplies.

"It's a tragedy, we'll need to rebuild both islands," he said. "Most of the schools have been destroyed."

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he will go to the islands has soon as weather conditions permit.

In the United Kingdom, the government said Irma inflicted "severe and in places critical" damage to the British overseas territory of Anguilla. Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said the Caribbean island took the full force of the hurricane. He told lawmakers on Thursday that the British Virgin islands have also suffered "severe damage."

Irma blacked out much of Puerto Rico, raking the U.S. territory with heavy wind and rain while staying just out to sea, and it headed early Thursday toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm's record 185 mph winds. Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma, and information on damage trickled out.

Nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when the hurricane's core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday and about 60 percent of its roughly 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.

"It is just really a horrendous situation," Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island.

He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery would take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.

One death also was reported in the nearby island of Anguilla, where officials reported extensive damage to the airport, hospitals, shelters and school and said 90 percent of roads are impassible, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

The agency also reported "major damage" to houses and commercial buildings in the British Virgin Islands.

On St. Thomas in the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands, Laura Strickling spent 12 hours hunkered down with her husband and 1-year-old daughter in a boarded-up basement apartment with no power as the storm raged outside. They emerged to find the lush island in tatters. Many of their neighbors' homes were damaged and once-dense vegetation was largely gone.

"There are no leaves. It is crazy. One of the things we loved about St. Thomas is that it was so green. And it's gone," Strickling said. "It will take years for this community to get back on its feet."

Significant damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. Photos and video circulating on social media showed major damage to the airport in Philipsburg and the coastal village of Marigot heavily flooded. France sent emergency food and water there and to the French island of St. Bart's, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday the storm "caused widescale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses."

"There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark, in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world," he said.

By early Thursday, the center of the storm was about 95 miles north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and was moving west-northwest near 17 mph.

More than half the island of Puerto Rico was without power, leaving 900,000 in the dark and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory's emergency management agency said in the midst of the storm. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.

Puerto Rico's public power company warned before the storm hit that some areas could be left without power from four to six months because its staff has been reduced and its infrastructure weakened by the island's decade-long economic slump.

President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as passes just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, nears the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirts Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.

It will then likely head north toward Florida, where people were rushing to board up homes, fill cars with gasoline and find a route to safety.

Gov. Rick Scott, who has mobilized parts of the state's National Guard, declared a state of emergency and asked the governors of Alabama and Georgia to waive trucking regulations so gasoline tankers can get fuel into Florida quickly to ease shortages.

An estimated 25,000 people or more left the Florida Keys after all visitors were ordered to clear out, causing bumper-to-bumper traffic on the single highway that links the chain of low-lying islands to the mainland.</s>The eye of the storm was just north of Puerto Rico and hurricane was moving west-northwest at 16 miles per hour (26 kilometers per hour).

This satellite image obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Irma at 1145 UTC on September 6, 2017 (Photo: AP)

Houston: Hurricane Irma sowed a trail of deadly devastation through the Caribbean on Wednesday, reducing to rubble the tropical islands of Barbuda and St Martin and claiming at least seven lives.

One of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, the dangerous Category Five hurricane was churning off the north coast of Puerto Rico on Wednesday night, on a potential collision course with south Florida where at-risk areas were evacuated.

The French part of St Martin -- a pristine resort known for its vibrant nightlife -- suffered the storm's full fury: at least six people died and 95 percent of dwellings were decimated, officials said.

"It's an enormous catastrophe. Ninety-five percent of the island is destroyed," top local official Daniel Gibbs said in a radio interview. "I'm in shock. It's frightening."

Guadeloupe prefect Eric Maire called the situation in St Martin "dramatic," saying the island -- which is divided between the Netherlands and France -- was without drinking water or electricity, and warning the death toll was almost certain to rise.

French President Emmanuel Macron earlier warned the final toll would be "harsh and cruel."

To the southeast, Barbuda, part of the twin island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, suffered "absolute devastation" with 95 percent of properties damaged, and up to 30 percent demolished, according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne.

"Barbuda now is literally rubble," Browne said. One person is known to have died on the island of 1,600 residents, apparently a child whose family was trying to get to safer ground.

Irma was packing maximum sustained winds of up to 185 mph (295 kph) as it followed a projected path that would see it hit the northern edges of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, continuing past eastern Cuba before veering north for Florida.

As of 0000 GMT, the eye of the storm was just north of Puerto Rico and the hurricane was moving west-northwest at 16 miles per hour (26 kilometers per hour).

- Haiti vulnerable -

 More than half of Puerto Rico's population of three million is without power, with rivers breaking their banks in the center and north of the island where Governor Ricardo Rossello activated the National Guard and opened storm shelters sufficient to house up to 62,000 people.

Blanca Santiago, who works in a beachside hotel in Puerto Rico's capital San Juan, described the howl of the wind whipping the coastline: "It was as if there were ghosts inside my home."

US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico as well as the US Virgin Islands and Florida where he said the outlook was "not good."

Trump spoke by telephone with the governors of all three areas to assure them of the federal government's support.

In Cuba, a state of alert was declared in several eastern and central provinces, with at-risk residents advised to move in with relatives or reach government shelters.

Haiti's northern coast was on hurricane alert, although in the town of Cap-Haitien residents appeared mostly unaware of the impending storm.

"It's thanks to word of mouth that we always learn about these things," said Josue Rosse, as he crouched next to a tree trunk that he was digging out to make a boat.

"We live on the edge of the sea but no one in authority has come to tell us what's what."

- Florida in path of storm -

 Category Five is the highest on the scale for hurricanes in the Atlantic and hurricanes of this intensity are rare. They can cause severe flooding, tear off roofing, shatter windows and uproot palm trees, turning them into deadly projectiles.

Irma follows hot on the heels of Hurricane Harvey which devastated swaths of Texas and Louisiana in late August. Irma was hitting the Caribbean even as two other tropical storms, Jose in the Atlantic Ocean and Katia in the Gulf of Mexico, were upgraded to hurricane status.

With forecasters warning of catastrophe, including surges of up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) above normal tide levels, people evacuated tourist areas, stocked up on provisions, and packed into shelters across an area stretching as far north as Florida.

The Sunshine State is expecting to face the brunt of the storm from Friday night.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said Irma, coming barely a week after Harvey claimed some 60 lives, posed "a severe threat to the entire state."

Tourists in the popular Key West islands were packing their bags on a mandatory evacuation order, with a similar order for residents due to follow.

"We're emphatically telling people you must evacuate, you cannot afford to stay on an island with a Category Five hurricane coming at you," said Monroe County emergency operations center director Martin Senterfitt.

Panicked residents stripped shelves bare in Miami as they rushed to stockpile everything from bottled water to sandbags before Irma strikes.

Gas stations between the Florida Keys and Miami ran out of gas, while nearly all local supermarkets had sold out of bottled water, with fights breaking out among shoppers in some stores.

"People go crazy and buy up everything," 81-year-old Gladys Bosque told AFP in a crowded supermarket in Miami Beach.

"There's no water, no milk, there are very few cans -- and no cat food."

Scott, the governor, activated 1,000 members of the National Guard and another 6,000 of the reserve troops will be reporting for duty no later than Friday morning.

A US aircraft carrier with a field hospital and dozens of aircraft able to conduct rescue or supply missions has been put on standby.</s>When Antigua's airport was closed Tuesday, visitors were sent away with advice to seek protection from the storm and a prayer, "May God protect us all."

Andrea Pujols, 26, who lives in Guaynabo, a suburb of the Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, spoke to The Washington Post on Tuesday night as she and her 55-year-old father, Edwin, raced to the airport to retrieve her mother, who was returning home from a trip to Pittsburgh ahead of the storm, having refused to let her family ride out Irma without her. The three will be holed up at home with Pujols' grandmother and dog, Lady.

"It's been chaos all day long," Pujols said. "There's nothing left at the supermarket. They're saying the airport will be closed for days. They're saying there's not going to be any light for three to four months."

In and around their city, which is not expected to see much flooding, Pujols said, several churches have opened as shelters for those who've evacuated already — and for those forced to do so later.

To prepare, the Pujols family stocked up on canned food, water and fuel for their small generator. It provides enough power to run some lights and fans, which in the absence of air conditioning should offer mild reprieve from the wilting tropical air.

They've even filled several large garbage cans, anticipating water and sewer service will be disrupted "for who knows how long," Edwin Pujols said.

As the storm approached Tuesday, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello encouraged residents to head for one of the territory's hundreds of shelters.

"The dangerousness of this event is like nothing we've ever seen," he said. "A lot of infrastructure won't be able to withstand this kind of force."

The government also began evacuating areas in the north and east of the island that are susceptible to flooding. Meanwhile, the director of Puerto Rico's power company warned that Irma could leave some areas without electricity for as much as four to six months, according to The Associated Press.

Local government officials have done well, the Pujols family said, by encouraging residents to stockpile supplies, avoid dangerous places or unnecessary risks, and leave areas most prone to flooding. "But with rain over rain over rain," Andrea Pujols added, "we're just hoping it doesn't get any worse" than what's been forecast.

Farther east, municipalities throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands are bracing for destruction of the like its 107,000 residents have not experienced since hurricane Marilyn in 1995 and, very possibly, Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Both storms — Marilyn hit St. Thomas as a strong Category 2, Hugo struck St. Croix as a Category 4 — claimed lives, levelled homes and business and knocked out basic services for months.

Rep. Stacey Plaskett, who represents the territory in Congress, told The Washington Post on Tuesday night that the Federal Emergency Management Administration has personnel pre-staged there to help launch recovery efforts once the storm passes. The White House declared a state of emergency there earlier in the evening, but Plaskett, a Democrat, called Irma "a local issue," and insisted the local government has the lead in ensuring a swift, orderly response.

Of principal concern, she said, are the islands' hospitals, many of which have lacked enough in federal funding to complete desired building upgrades that would fortify them against severe weather. What money is given to the Virgin Islands through Medicare and Medicaid is prioritized for patient care, she said.

The Navy is ready to deploy a hospital ship and medical personnel if such help is needed, Plaskett told The Post.

St. Thomas and St. John are expected to be hit "much harder" than St. Croix, she added.

Plaskett said she's worried about storm surge and how it will affect those who rely on cisterns, large tanks that collect and store rainwater for cooking, showering and flushing toilets. She's worried about the islands' power grid — "We have some difficulty with electricity as it is," she noted — and the islands' communications network. She's worried whether residents remembered to charge their cellphones and have enough backup batteries to keep their radios powered.

"My greatest concern right now," the congresswoman added, "is that people stay indoors."

With Irma expected to thrash South Florida, where mandatory evacuations were ordered Tuesday, some Virgin Islanders were nervous that federal assistance would become less of a priority once the storm affects the continental United States.

Michael Resch, 59, whose father built St. Thomas's Island Beachcomber Hotel in 1957, remembers the painful recovery from Marilyn and Hugo, when the power went out for several weeks.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "we're kind of like the forgotten child here. Every time they talk about Irma, it's all 'Floridabe prepared.' St. Thomas never gets mentioned."

President Donald Trump declared emergencies in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

By early Tuesday evening, about 10 of the hotel's 50 rooms remained occupied, Resch said. Some of his younger employees, those who'd never experienced a hurricane before, were on edge, but he was working to keep them and the guests calm.

His staff had moved everyone to the building's first floor and stowed all remaining pool furniture that could become airborne in Irma's powerful winds. Resch said he is hopeful that reinforcements made to the hotel after Hurricane Hugo will keep the roof intact in his hotel's three buildings, and that any power loss will be brief.

The Island Beachcomber doesn't have a generator, he said.

"If there's a good thing about being on an island in a hurricane, it's that the storm doesn't get stuck over the land," Resch said, a reference to the days-long battering that Texas took during late last month during hurricane Harvey. "It'll be gone in twelve to twenty hours. But Mother Nature -"</s>SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — French, British and Dutch rescuers rushed aid to a string of Caribbean islands Thursday after Hurricane Irma left at least seven people dead and thousands homeless as it traced a course that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida this weekend.

Warships and military planes were dispatched with food, water and troops after the fearsome Category 5 storm smashed homes, schools and roads, laying waste to some of the world’s most beautiful and exclusive island destinations.

Hundreds of miles to the west, Florida braced for the onslaught, with forecasters warning Irma could slam headlong into the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people, punish the entire length of the state’s Atlantic coast and move into Georgia and South Carolina.

Officials issued evacuation orders covering more than a half-million people in Miami-Dade County as Irma closed in with winds of 175 mph (281 kph).

By Thursday afternoon, the hurricane was north of the Dominican Republic, where authorities reported some flooding and the evacuation of several thousand locals and tourists but no serious damage or casualties.

Skies over the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, were still clear just after noon local time. About a million people were without power in Puerto Rico after Irma sideswiped the island, but there were no immediate reports of large-scale casualties.

But the first islands hit by the storm were scenes of terrible destruction.

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.

Irma also slammed the French island of St. Barts, tearing off roofs and knocking out electricity.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said 100,000 food rations were sent to St. Barts and St. Martin, the equivalent of four days of supplies.

“It’s a tragedy. We’ll need to rebuild both islands,” he said. “Most of the schools have been destroyed.”

Photos and video of St. Martin circulating on social media showed major damage to the Philipsburg airport and heavy flooding in the coastal village of Marigot.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the storm “caused wide-scale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.”

“There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world,” he said.

Far out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Jose grew into a Category 2 storm, threatening some of the same islands ravaged by Irma.

Meanwhile, Irma, the most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever recorded, appeared increasingly likely to rip into heavily populated South Florida early Sunday.

People rushed to board up their homes, take their boats out of the water and gas up their cars. With gasoline running out and tensions rising, the Florida Highway Patrol escorted tanker trucks sent to replenish gas stations.

“It is wider than our entire state and could cause major and life-threatening impacts from coast to coast. Regardless of which coast you live on, be prepared to evacuate,” Gov. Rick Scott said.

Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said Irma could easily prove to be the costliest storm in U.S. history.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he would go to the islands as soon as the weather permits it. Saying he was “grief-stricken,” Macron called for concerted efforts to tackle global warming to prevent similar natural disasters.

Two Dutch navy ships were in St. Martin with vital supplies. And two Dutch military aircraft were being sent the island of Curacao and on to St. Martin to deliver food and water intended to last the population of 40,000 five days. The aircraft were carrying 100 extra troops to deliver aid, repair infrastructure and restore order.

Britain was sending hundreds of troops and the Royal Navy flagship HMS Ocean to Anguilla, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands.

In Anguilla, officials reported extensive damage to the airport, hospitals, shelters and schools and said 90 percent of roads were impassable.

On Barbuda, nearly every building was damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday. About 60 percent of its roughly 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.

“It is just really a horrendous situation,” Browne said.

He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery will take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne said.

On St. Thomas in the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands, Laura Strickling spent 12 hours hunkered down with her husband and 1-year-old daughter in a boarded-up basement apartment with no power as the storm raged outside. They emerged to find the lush island in tatters. Many of their neighbors’ homes were damaged and once-dense vegetation was largely gone.

“There are no leaves. It is crazy. One of the things we loved about St. Thomas is that it was so green. And it’s gone,” Strickling said. “It will take years for this community to get back on its feet.”

More than half the island of Puerto Rico was without power, leaving more 900,000 in the dark and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said in the midst of the storm. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.

Puerto Rico’s public power company warned before the storm hit that some areas could be left without power from four to six months because its staff has been reduced and its infrastructure weakened by the island’s financial crisis.

President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, allowing federal agencies to step in and provide aid.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Irma would remain at Category 4 or 5 as it passed just to the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, neared the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas by Thursday night and skirted Cuba on Friday night into Saturday.

Haiti ordered the evacuation of coastal areas in the north of the country, while Cuba’s eastern Santiago province opened 125 evacuation centers that can hold 38,000 people.
At least seven people are killed on the islands of Barbuda, St. Barts and St. Martin. Heavy rain and Category 5 winds hit the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico’s northeast coast.