The Latest on Irma: The Ocean Retreats, The Power is Out, GA Now in State of Emergency (VIDEO/PICS)

by Fred T

Mega storm Hurricane Irma is plowing through Florida on it’s way to Georgia and points north, and leaving destruction, flooding, and freaky behavior in its wake.

Take, for example, this absolutely spooky phenomenon as the ocean recedes from Tampa, headed out to sea and the huge swells in the force of Irma’s winds.

The same thing happened in the Bahamas a few days earlier, before Irma put a tremendous lashing on the island nation.

Power outages are widespread across Florida and are expected in Georgia and South Carolina as well. Even North Carolina and Tennessee are preparing for outages. In Miami-Dade alone over 1.5 million people are in the dark, and they are being warned not to expect it back for days.

The Miami Herald:

More than 1.5 million homes and businesses in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were without power Sunday afternoon as Hurricane Irma assaulted the lower Florida Keys and thrashed South Florida.

Category 4 Irma could cut the power to as many as 3 million Florida Power & Light customers across the state before the storm is done with Florida, FPL officials said Sunday morning in a 40-minute briefing meeting at the company’s command center. Outages stood at 1.5 million FPL customer accounts — or about 3 million people — at 11 a.m. and are expected to increase throughout the day.


Flooding: Just look at this.

More flooding images #hurricaneirma #miami @nbc6 @cbsmiami @wsvn @local10news @cnn @weatherchannel

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The Mirror:

There is severe flooding in downtown Miami – where one reporter described it as “neck deep” – but the worst is yet to come. Entire coastal areas on the west coast could be inundated with up to 15ft of water.

More than a million buildings are without electricity as the storm uproots trees, downs power lines, snaps construction cranes in half and floods streets.

Thousands of people are hunkered down in shelters across Florida after seven million people were ordered to leave their homes in the largest evacuation in US history.


Three people have died in Florida, not counting deaths in the Caribbean. Two were police officers. Wind, rain, and storm surge are still to come tonight for much of Florida and will last through tomorrow.

Georgia has now declared a state of emergency across every county as they prepare for the storm’s approach. Most of the state is in Tropical Storm or Hurricane warnings and watches. Winds are expected to down trees and power lines.

By far, the worst is not over. The eye is currently just north of the keys, not even parallel yet with the southern tip of the mainland. It’s going to be a long night. Pray for Tampa, and all of Florida.

Please consider this an open thread.


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