Key West: Hurricane Irma barreled toward the US mainland on Wednesday, prompting the southernmost county in Florida to begin evacuations along its lone island-hopping highway while the "potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm menaced Puerto Rico and a wide swath of the Caribbean.
Forecasters said Irma posed an increasing threat to South Florida, a sprawling and densely populated mass of cities and suburbs hugging the coastline.
As dire warnings mounted, schools and offices began to shut down, grocery store shelves were wiped clean and authorities ordered evacuations with more to follow.
The most powerful hurricane to threaten the Atlantic coast in more than a decade, Irma has swelled into a monster force with maximum sustained winds near 185 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center said Irma's "extremely dangerous core" would move over the Leeward Islands on Wednesday morning before heading toward the northern Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico later in the day.
Throughout the American territories and other Caribbean islands in Irma's path, residents watched the storm with fear, wondering whether they would emerge from Irma with destroyed homes or no electricity for months. Irma's eye passed over Barbuda at around 1.47 am on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said, while on the French Caribbean islands of St Martin and St Barthelemy, residents were ordered to remain indoors.
According to the Capital Weather Gang, Barbuda took a direct hit and the weather station there registered a wind gust of 155 mph hour before going offline, while the storm surge on the island — or the swell of water above normally dry land — reached at least 8 feet.
By Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said Irma's eye had passed over St. Martin and warned that the storm could bring dangers including life-threatening storm surges, destructive winds, flash floods and mud slides to Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and beyond.
Further north, the Florida Keys on Wednesday morning ordered the first mandatory evacuations triggered by Irma in the United States. Monroe County,
which includes the Keys and covers the southernmost stretch of the Sunshine State, began mandatory evacuations of tourists and visitors on Wednesday morning. The county is also home to some 80,000 residents, who were ordered to evacuate beginning Wednesday evening.
In Key West, hotels closed down ahead of the evacuation order and the airport was scheduled to halt operations later Wednesday.