Hurricane Irma: As Category 5 storm kills 14 enroute Florida, Turks and Caicos Islands brace for the worst

Providancials, Turks and Caicos: Residents of the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday hunkered down for Hurricane Irma, which has smashed through a string of Caribbean islands as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, killing at least 14 people en route to Florida. With winds of around 185 miles per hour (290 kilometres per hour), the storm the size of France has ravaged small islands in the northeast Caribbean in recent days, including Barbuda, Saint Martin and the British and US Virgin Islands, ripping down trees and flattening homes and hospitals. Winds dipped on Thursday to 175 mph as the Irma soaked the northern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and brought hurricane-force wind to the Turks and Caicos Islands. It remained an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm, the highest designation by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). [caption id=“attachment_4021149” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of the rescue operations during Hurricane Irma. AP[/caption] Irma was about 40 miles (65 kilometres) south of Turks and Caicos and is expected to reach the Bahamas later Thursday, before moving to Cuba and plowing into southern Florida as a very powerful Category 4 on Sunday, with storm surges and flooding due to begin within the next 48 hours. Across the Caribbean authorities rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of residents and tourists in the path of the storm, while on islands in its wake, shocked locals tried to comprehend the extent of the devastation while simultaneously preparing for another major hurricane, Jose, currently a Category 3 and due to hit the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday. It was the first time the Turks and Caicos islands had experienced a Category 5 storm, said Virginia Clerveaux, director of Disaster Management and Emergencies. “We are expecting inundation from both rainfall as well as storm surge. And we may not be able to come rescue them in a timely manner,” she said in comments broadcast on Facebook. The few tourists who remained on the Turks and Caicos islands were in hotels, as were some locals. “Right now I‘m at the hotel with my family. There are a lot of people in the hotel. It’s boarded up,” said island resident Sofia Simmons, speaking from the Royal West Indies Hotel on Providenciales island. “Most of our shelters are packed to capacity. We had to open more shelters.”