Hurricane Irma

MIAMI – The outer bands of Hurricane Irma lashed Florida on Saturday, with millions ordered to evacuate and high winds and tens of thousands of power outages already reported from a storm that threatened to ravage the state with destruction not seen in a generation. More than 5 million people across Florida have been ordered to evacuate and thousands crammed into shelters. Gov. Rick Scott (R) sounded dire warnings about the storm, urging residents in evacuation zones to leave their homes immediately.

Inside Palm Beach Gardens High School’s basketball gym, mattresses and sleeping bags were spread out on the floor Saturday for more than 3,000 people.

Hurricane Irma regained strength as it closed in on the Florida Keys early Sunday as forecasters monitored a crucial shift in its trajectory – just a few more miles to the west – that could keep its ferocious eye off the southwest Florida coast and over warm gulf water.

Floridians fleeing Hurricane Irma have turned freeways across the Southeast into red ribbons of brake lights as they head elsewhere – to Atlanta, Montgomery, Nashville – to bunk with relatives, stay at campgrounds or grab hotels before the massive storm makes landfall.

Irma trained its sights on Florida and officials warned more than 5 million people that time was running out Friday to evacuate ahead of the deadly hurricane as it followed a path that could take it from one end of the state to the other.

With four big hurricanes, a powerful earthquake and wildfires, it seems that nature recently has just gone nuts.

A deadly Hurricane Irma scraped Cuba’s northern coast Friday on a course toward Florida, leaving in its wake a ravaged string of Caribbean resort islands strewn with splintered lumber, corrugated metal and broken concrete.

Congress on Friday sent President Donald Trump a massive package of $15.3 billion in disaster aid linked to an increase in the nation’s borrowing authority that angered conservative Republicans who hissed and booed senior administration officials dispatched to Capitol Hill to defend it.

The race to flee Hurricane Irma became a marathon nightmare as more than a half-million people were ordered to leave South Florida on Thursday.