There were no immediate reports of casualties but the minister for French overseas territories, Annick Girardin, said “We have a lot to fear for a certain number of our compatriots who unfortunately didn’t want to listen to the protection measures and go to more secure sites … We’re preparing for the worst.”

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said the twin-island nation appears to have weathered its brush with Hurricane Irma with no deaths, though he noted that the government had only done a preliminary assessment of Barbuda. The prime minister on Thursday called for voluntary evacuations of Barbuda’s 2,000 inhabitants to Antigua, which fared better than its sister island during Irma, as a second hurricane, Jose, is strengthening and appears to be taking aim at the Caribbean. The record Category 5 storm, which skirted north of the Dominican Republic early Thursday as the powerful Category 5 storm, has set its sights on south Florida after leaving a trail of death and destruction in the Caribbean. 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. On the forecast track, the center should pass north of the coast of Hispaniola later today, be near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas by this evening, and then be near the Central Bahamas by Friday. “To the people of Florida, we just want you to protect yourselves, be very very vigilant and careful,” said US President Donald Trump, who owns the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida as well as a property on the French side of Saint Martin, an island devastated by the storm. Swells generated by Irma are affecting the northern Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the southeastern Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, and they should start affecting portions of the southeast coast of the United States later today and tonight. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Irma blacked out much of Puerto Rico as the dangerous Category 5 storm raked 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. Ricardo Rossello said at a press conference Thursday morning that 6,200 people had hunkered down at shelters while Irma dropped 2 to 8 inches of rain across the island and up to 12 inches of rain in some isolated spots. The most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history made its first landfall in the islands of the northeast Caribbean early Wednesday, churning along a path pointing to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba before possibly heading for Florida over the weekend. The northern parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti could see 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, with as much as 20 inches (50 centimeters) in the southeast Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. "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. "This is not an opportunity to go outside and try to have fun with a hurricane," U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered for parts of several Florida counties, including Brevard County, Broward County, Indian River County, Lee County, Martin County, Monroe County, Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach County, St. John’s County. Irma was about 270 miles east of Caibarien on Cuba’s central-north coast, and 405 miles southeast of Miami, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory at 11 a.m EDT on Friday. Irma, dubbed the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, had maximum sustained winds of 175 mph on Thursday afternoon as it moved further away from the northern coast of Puerto Rico and over the Dominican Republic and Haiti. ET, Irma was about 55 miles west-southwest of Grand Turk Island, the capital of Turks and Caicos, moving at 16 mph as it raced toward the tiny tropical archipelago southeast of the Bahamas, where the storm is expected to hit Thursday night.
Irma has killed at least 14 people. The storm, still at Category 5 strength with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph (280 km/h), is moving west-northwest at 16 mph (26 km/h). It has reached the dual-country island of Hispaniola and is forecast to pass over the Turks and Caicos Islands as it heads towards The Bahamas and Cuba. The eye did not directly hit Puerto Rico; still casualties are reported and around two-thirds of its 3.4 million population are without electricity.