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MIAMI (AP) — More than 170,000 homes and businesses in Florida have lost power and the center of Irma is still more than 90 miles southeast of Key West. Florida Power and Light said on its website that more than half of those outages were in the Miami-Dade area, where about 600,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (AP) — The wild isolation that made St. Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands into vacation paradises has now turned them into cutoff, chaotic nightmares in the wake of Hurricane Irma. The Category 5 storm snapped the islands' fragile links to the outside world with a direct hit, pounding their small airports, decapitating cell-phone towers, filling harbors with crushed boats and stranding thousands of tourists and locals. Looting has been reported, and extra troops are being sent in.
JUCHITAN, Mexico (AP) — Emergency crews in Mexico have recovered the body of a police officer buried in rubble, raising to 65 the death toll from this week's 8.1-magnitude earthquake. The man's body was found in a collapsed passageway between city hall offices and a market in the southern city of Juchitan, the city hit hardest by Thursday night's quake. Federal officials have also confirmed the new death toll of 65. That includes 37 in Juchitan.
REDINGTON SHORES, Fla. (AP) — Despite mandatory evacuation orders in advance of Irma's storm surge and fierce winds, some around Florida are hunkering down at home. Some are too poor to move; others insist on protecting their pets. Some don't like shelters. Others think they've missed their chance and don't want to get stuck on busy highways. Even some mobile home residents are staying put, crossing their fingers and leaving their fate to Mother Nature.
UNDATED (AP) — More than two dozen storage tanks holding crude oil, gasoline and other contaminants failed when Harvey slammed into the Texas coast, spilling at least 145,000 gallons of fuel and spewing toxic pollutants into the air. The tank failures follow years of warnings that the Houston area's petrochemical industry was ill-prepared for a major storm. More of the massive storage tanks could be put to the test in coming days as Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida.
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