Florida battered: Irma leaves 5 million without power

September 11, 2017 08:01

Hurricane Irma lashed the Florida mainland, where anxious residents dreaded being "punched in the face" by the monster storm after it whipped the Keys island chain with fearsome wind gusts.

One of the mightiest hurricanes ever to slam storm-prone Florida, Irma is threatening dangerous storm surges of up to 15 feet (4.5 metres), enough to cover a house, as it collides with the state after sowing devastation through the Caribbean.

At least 30 deaths are attributable to the storm, including three in Florida. The US victims included a sheriff's deputy killed in a head-on collision early yesterday as she drove home to get supplies after working in a shelter all night.

Before reaching the United States, Irma smashed through a string of Caribbean islands from tiny Barbuda on Wednesday, to the tropical paradises of Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos.

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