Wrapup 12: Floridians return to storm-battered homes as Irma flooding spreads

Fednat Holding Co

12/09/2017 02:53

(Adds details of flooding in Florida, Georgia and South 
Carolina, Orlando flood rescues, U.S. military concerns about 
possibly stranded Keys residents, revised power outage figures) 
    * Irma downgraded to tropical storm, heads into Georgia 
    * Over 7.4 million in Florida, other states without power 
    * Nearly 40 lives claimed in Caribbean, at least 3 in U.S. 
    * Flooding hits coastal communities in three states 
 
    By Andy Sullivan and Robin Respaut 
    FLORIDA CITY/MARCO ISLAND, Fla., Sept 11 (Reuters) - 
S torm-shocked Floridians returned to shattered homes on Monday 
as the remnants of Hurricane Irma pushed inland, leaving more 
than half of all state residents without power and city streets 
underwater from Orlando and Jacksonville into coastal Georgia 
and South Carolina. 
    Downgraded to a tropical storm early on Monday, Irma had 
ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record 
before barreling into the Florida Keys on Sunday and plowing 
northward along the Gulf Coast to wreak havoc across a wide 
swath of the third-most populous U.S. state. 
    Especially hard hit was the resort archipelago of the Keys, 
extending into the Gulf of Mexico from the tip of Florida's 
peninsula and connected to the mainland by a single, narrow 
highway, Governor Rick Scott told a news conference on Monday. 
    "There's devastation," he said, adding that virtually every 
mobile-home park on the island chain was left upended. "It's 
horrible what we saw." 
    While some evacuees from the Keys expressed anger at 
authorities refusing to allow them to return to their homes, the 
U.S. Defense Department said as many as 10,000 residents who had 
stayed put on the island may now be stranded and in need of 
evacuation. 
    No timetable for reopening the Keys has been given. 
    In Miami, which escaped the worst of Irma's winds but 
experienced heavy flooding, residents in the city's Little Haiti 
neighborhood returned to the wreckage of trailer homes that were 
shredded by the storm. 
    "I wanted to cry, but this is what it is, this is life," 
Melida Hernandez, 67, who had ridden out the storm at a nearby 
church, said as she gazed at the ruins of her dwelling, split in 
two by a fallen tree. 
    Severe flooding was reported on Monday in northeastern 
Florida, including Jacksonville, where police were rescuing 
residents from waist-deep water as the St. Johns River rose to 
levels unseen since 1846. 
    "Stay inside. Go up. Not out," Jacksonville's website warned 
residents. "There is flooding throughout the city." The city 
also warned residents to be wary of snakes and alligators driven 
into the floodwaters. 
    Before dawn on Monday, Florida National Guard troops and 
local firefighters rescued nearly 150 people from dozens of 
flooded homes in western Orlando and ferried them in large 
trucks and rescue launches to a shelter on higher ground. 
    As Irma crossed into Georgia later in the day, packing 
sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (100 kph), the storm's 
tidal surge unleashed flooding in coastal communities from 
Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia, to Charleston, South Carolina. 
In Charleston, waves crashed over the city's Battery sea wall 
and filled downtown streets for blocks. 
     
    EVACUEES URGED TO STAY PUT 
    Still, the scope of damage in Florida and neighboring states 
paled in comparison with the utter devastation left by Irma as a 
rare Category 5 hurricane in parts of the Caribbean, where the 
storm killed nearly 40 people - at least 10 of them in Cuba - 
before turning its fury on Florida.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1LS0PA 
    The storm claimed its first known U.S. fatality over the 
weekend in the Keys - a man found dead in a pickup truck that 
had crashed into a tree in high winds. 
    At least one other possibly storm-related fatal car crash 
was reported on Sunday in Orange County, Florida. On Monday, two 
people were killed by falling trees in two Atlanta suburbs, 
according to local authorities.      
    Some 6.5 million people, about one-third of Florida's 
population, had been ordered from their homes ahead of Irma's 
arrival, and more than 200,000 people sought refuge in about 700 
shelters, according to state data. 
    Scott urged evacuees all over the state to stay put for now 
rather than rush home, saying downed power lines, debris and 
other hazards abounded. "Don't put any more lives at risk," he 
said. 
     
    WITHOUT POWER 
    One of the biggest lingering problems was widespread power 
outages, with utilities reporting more than 7.4 million homes 
and businesses without electricity in Florida and neighboring 
states. They said it could take weeks to fully restore service. 
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1LS0LV 
    Scott said 65 percent of Florida was without power. 
    Travel into and out of the state likewise remained stymied. 
Miami International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, 
halted passenger flights through at least Monday. 
    Police in Miami-Dade County and Fort Lauderdale reported 
making 48 arrests for looting. 
    The Keys were largely evacuated before the storm struck with 
winds of up to 130 mph (209 kph), and police established a 
checkpoint on Monday to keep displaced residents from returning 
while authorities work to restore power, water, fuel supplies 
and medical service. 
    Some seeking re-entry argued with police who stopped them at 
the first of a series of bridges leading to the island 
chain. L2N1LS13J  
    "I would expect that the Keys are not fit for re-entry for 
regular citizenry for weeks," Tom Bossert, a homeland security 
adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, told a White House news 
briefing. 
    Irma's arrival in Florida came about two weeks after 
Hurricane Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property 
damage estimates as high as $180 billion after pummeling the 
Gulf Coasts of Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains and severe 
flooding. 
    Insured property losses in Florida from Irma are expected to 
run from $20 billion to $40 billion, catastrophe modeling firm 
AIR Worldwide estimated. 
    That tally, lower than earlier forecasts of up to $50 
billion in insured losses, helped spur a relief rally on Wall 
Street as fears eased that Irma would cut into U.S. economic 
growth.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1LS4KU  
    As shelters began to empty on Monday, some 7,000 people 
filed out of Germain Arena in Estero, south of Fort Myers. The 
crowd included Don Sciarretta, 73, and his 90-year-old friend, 
Elsie Johnston, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. 
    "For the next storm, I'll go somewhere on my own like a 
hotel or a friend's house," Sciarretta said. "I'm not going 
through this again." 
 
    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Few mobile homes in Florida are storm-ready, despite code    
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1LP1SV 
Insurers ache for qualified inspectors after U.S. hurricanes    
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1LQ0CK 
In sunny Monte Carlo, insurers tally hurricane costs    
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N1LS14Z 
Powerful hurricanes to fuel demands from island nations at 
climate talks     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N1LR0WZ 
After Irma, tourists party and Cubans take a dip in flooded 
streets     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1LS1N9 
Caribbean faces hard road to recovery after Irma's ravages    
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1LR0IK 
For full coverage of Irma      urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nIRMA 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> 
 (Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Fla., Bernie 
Woodall, Ben Gruber and Zachary Fagenson in Miami, Dan Whitcomb 
in Los Angeles, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in 
Winston-Salem, N.C., Harriet McLeod in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., Doina 
Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York 
and Marc Frank in Havana; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve 
Gorman; Editing by Paul Simao and Peter Cooney) 
 ((scott.malone@thomsonreuters.com; +1 617 856 4342; Reuters 
Messaging: scott.malone.thomsonreuters.com@reute.net)) 
 
Keywords: STORM IRMA/