Powerful Hurricane Irma bears down on Caribbean islands

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua (AP) — The most powerful Atlantic Ocean
hurricane in recorded history bore down on the islands of the northeast
Caribbean late Tuesday, following a path predicted to then rake Puerto Rico,
the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba before possibly heading for Florida over
the weekend.

At the far northeastern edge of the Caribbean, authorities
on the Leeward Islands of Antigua and Barbuda cut power and urged residents to
shelter indoors as they braced for Hurricane Irma’s first contact with land
early Wednesday.

Officials warned people to seek protection from Irma’s “onslaught”
in a statement that closed with: “May God protect us all.”

The Category 5 storm had maximum sustained winds of 185 mph,
according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

“I hear it’s a Cat 5 now and I’m terrified,”
Antigua resident Carol Joseph said as she finished her last trip to the
supermarket before seeking shelter. “I had to come back for more batteries
because I don’t know how long the current will be off.”

Other islands in the path of the storm included the U.S. and
British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, a small, low-lying British island
territory of about 15,000 people.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared emergencies in Florida,
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and authorities in the Bahamas said
they would evacuate the residents of six islands at the southern end of the
island chain.

Warm water is fuel for hurricanes and Irma is over water
that is 1.8 degrees warmer than normal. The 79-degree water that hurricanes
need goes about 250 feet deep, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the
private forecasting service Weather Underground.

Four other storms have had winds as strong in the overall
Atlantic region but they were in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, which
are usually home to warmer waters that fuel cyclones. Hurricane Allen hit 190
mph in 1980, while 2005’s Wilma, 1988’s Gilbert and a 1935 great Florida Key
storm all had 185 mph winds.

The storm’s eye was expected to pass about 50 miles from
Puerto Rico late Wednesday. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 50
miles from Irma’s center and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to
175 miles.

The northern Leeward Islands were expected to see waves as
high as 11 feet, while the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas
could see towering 20-foot waves later in the week, forecasters said.

“This is not an opportunity to go outside and try to
have fun with a hurricane,” U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp warned. “It’s
not time to get on a surfboard.”

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said his government was
evacuating the six islands in the south because authorities would not be able
to help anyone caught in the “potentially catastrophic” wind,
flooding and storm surge. People there would be flown to Nassau starting
Wednesday in what he called the largest storm evacuation in the country’s
history.

“The price you may pay for not evacuating is your life
or serious physical harm,” Minnis said.

The National Weather Service said Puerto Rico had not seen a
hurricane of Irma’s magnitude since Hurricane San Felipe in 1928, which killed
a total of 2,748 people in Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and Florida.

“The dangerousness of this event is like nothing we’ve
ever seen,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said. “A lot of
infrastructure won’t be able to withstand this kind of force.”

The director of the island’s power company has warned that
storm damage could leave some areas without electricity for about a week and
other, unspecified areas for four to six months. The utility’s infrastructure
has deteriorated greatly during a decade-long recession, and Puerto Ricans
experienced an island-wide outage last year.

Government officials began evacuations and urged people to
finalize all preparations as store shelves emptied out around Puerto Rico.

“The decisions that we make in the next couple of hours
can make the difference between life and death,” Rossello said. “This
is an extremely dangerous storm.”

No directly storm-related deaths were reported by Tuesday
evening but a 75-year-old man died in the central Puerto Rico mountain town of
Orocovis after he fell from a ladder while preparing for the hurricane, police
said.

The eye of the storm was expected to roar westward on a path
taking it north of millions of people in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic,
Haiti and Cuba, but meteorologists warned that it could still cause
life-threating storm surges, rains and mudslides.

The northern parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti could
see 10 inches of rain, with as much as 20 inches in the southeast Bahamas and
Turks and Caicos.

The storm seemed almost certain to hit the United States by
early next week.

“You’d be hard pressed to find any model that doesn’t
have some impact on Florida,” said University of Miami senior hurricane
researcher Brian McNoldy.

In Florida, people also stocked up on drinking water and
other supplies.

Gov. Rick Scott activated 100 members of the Florida
National Guard to be deployed across the state, and 7,000 National Guard
members were to report for duty Friday when the storm could be approaching the
area. On Monday, Scott declared a state of emergency in all of Florida’s 67
counties.

Officials in the Florida Keys geared up to get tourists and
residents out of Irma’s path, and the mayor of Miami-Dade county said people
should be prepared to evacuate Miami Beach and most of the county’s coastal
areas.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the voluntary evacuations could
begin as soon as Wednesday evening. He activated the emergency operation center
and urged residents to have three days’ worth of food and water.

A new tropical storm also formed in the Atlantic on Tuesday,
to the east of Irma. The hurricane center said Tropical Storm Jose was about
1,330 miles (2,140 kilometers) east of the Lesser Antilles late Tuesday and its
maximum sustained winds had risen to 50 mph (85 kph). It was moving
west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph) and could become a hurricane by Wednesday
night.

Meanwhile, a tropical depression formed in the southwestern
Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Mexico. The hurricane center said the system
could become a tropical storm while meandering in the Gulf for several days
before making landfall in Mexico on Saturday.
___

Associated Press writer Anita Kentish reported this story in
Antigua and AP writer Danica Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP
writers Seth Borenstein in Washington, Michael Weissenstein in Havana, Cuba and
Ben Fox in Miami contributed to this report.