Hurricane Irma, the Category 5 hurricane storming through the northeast Caribbean and approaching the east coast of the U.S., has maintained winds of 185 miles per hour for the past two days, which is longer than any storm ever recorded.
Irma is currently tearing through parts of the Caribbean and is still on a path straight for Florida.
Videos of Irma’s destruction have been hitting the internet and garnering millions of views.
There aren’t any significant land masses to slow Irma down before it hits Florida, and the water the hurricane will soon be traveling over is a hot 90 degrees, which will help keep its speed up.
At least nine are dead so far, and that number expected to climb. Four are dead in St. Martin, three in Puerto Rico, one in Anguilla and a child on Barbuda, the island where Irma made landfall that is now essentially completely destroyed.
You’ll want to turn the sound on for these videos.
Mike Seidel, who works for Weather.com, has been posting videos to his Facebook page.
Here is another:
Here is a video from inside the eye of Irma.
The video is courtesy Maj. Brad Roundtree, 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, U.S. Air Force Reserve. The Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters will continue to fly until the storm makes landfall, collecting data so the NOAA NWS National Hurricane Center can increase the accuracy of its forecasts.
Tens of thousands of people in Florida have been evacuating in advance of the storm; the highways are at a stand-still and most gas stations in areas in Irma’s path are already out of gas.
(Twitter)
Hurricane Irma is larger than Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which destroyed 63,500 houses, damaged more than 124,000 others and caused $26.5 billion in damages.
Justin Michaels, a national correspondent for the Weather Channel, tweeted out this comparison – Andrew is the smaller hurricane.
(Twitter)
