Hurricane Irma weakens to Category 2 storm

Irma continues to bring with it gale force winds and heavy rains that have stranded scores of people and knocked out power to over 2 million homes and businesses in Florida.

A truck is seen turned over as Hurricane Irma passes south Florida, in Miami, U.S. September 10, 2017.
Reuters

A truck is seen turned over as Hurricane Irma passes south Florida, in Miami, U.S. September 10, 2017.

Hurricane Irma has weakened to a Category Two storm after making its second landfall in Florida on Sunday, US forecasters warned.

The warning, however, still had “dangerous” winds causing “life-threatening” storm surges.

At 5:00 pm local time (2100 GMT), the hurricane had top winds of 177 kilometres per hour at the top end of the Category Two storm range.

The eye of the storm is located just eight kilometres north of Naples, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.

“Dangerous storm surges expected immediately after the eye passage along the Florida West Coast,” the NHC said.

“This is a life-threatening situation. Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water and the potential for other dangerous conditions.”

It cautioned that although it was set to weaken further, Irma was expected to remain a hurricane at least through early Monday.

TRT World ’s Gile Gibson earlier reported from Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

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Trump approves federal aid for Florida

US President Donald Trump on Sunday approved a major disaster declaration for Florida and ordered federal aid to help the state struck by the storm.

The declaration means residents and businesses can apply for grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs.

The federal government will also reimburse counties for emergency protective measures including evacuation and sheltering costs as well as for much of the costs of debris removal.

Irma leaves 2 million homes, businesses without power

Irma knocked out power to more than 2.4 million homes and businesses in Florida on Sunday.

The storm threatened millions more as it crept up the state’s west coast, and full restoration of service will take weeks, local electric utilities said.

Much of the state had yet to feel the full brunt of the storm as Irma barreled across the Florida Keys on Sunday morning and rolled up the state’s southwest coast.

TRT World ’s Ediz Tiyansan had earlier filed this report from his hotel in Miami.

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With maximum sustained winds of 195 km per hour, as it was a Category 3 storm earlier - the third worst on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

So far, the brunt of the storm has affected Florida Power & Light’s customers in the states’ southern and eastern sections.

FPL, the biggest power company in Florida, said more than 2.3 million of its customers were without power by 4:30 pm EDT (2030 GMT), mostly in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

More than 200,000 had electricity restored, mostly by automated devices.

“We will have to rebuild part of our system, particularly in the western part of the state,” FPL spokesman Rob Gould said at a news conference on Sunday.

Reuters

A fallen tree blocks Biscayne Boulevard. as Hurricane Irma arrives in Hollywood, Florida, September 10, 2017.

“That restoration process will be measured in weeks, not days.”

FPL is a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc.

Large utilities that serve other parts of the state, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, have had scattered outages.

Duke warned its 1.8 million customers in northern and central Florida that outages could exceed 1 million.

Emera’s Tampa Electric utility said the storm could affect up to 500,000 of the 730,000 homes and businesses it serves.

The utilities had thousands of workers, some from as far away as California, ready to help restore power once Irma’s high winds pass their service areas. About 17,000 were assisting FPL, nearly 8,000 at Duke and more than 1,300 at Emera.

FPL decided to shut only one of the two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant about 48 km south of Miami on Saturday because the storm track shifted. It plans to leave both reactors in service at the St Lucie plant about 193 km north of Miami because hurricane-force winds are no longer expected to hit the sites.

On Sunday, Gould said its nuclear plants were safe.

FPL had planned to shut both units at Turkey Point sometime on Saturday about 24 hours before hurricane-force winds reached the plant.

There is also spent nuclear fuel at Duke’s Crystal River plant, about 144 km north of Tampa. The plant, on Irma’s current forecast track, stopped operating in 2009 and was retired in 2013.

In a worst-case scenario, the spent fuel could release radiation if exposed to the air, but a federal nuclear official said that was extremely unlikely.

“There is nothing to indicate there is any concern for the spent fuel stored at Crystal River,” said Scott Burnell of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “That fuel is so cold, relatively speaking, it would take weeks before there would be any concern.”

Duke was transferring the spent fuel to dry cask storage as part of the work to decommission the plant but suspended the effort temporarily ahead of Irma.

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