HURRICANE IRMA LATEST STORM TRACK BREAKING NEWS FOR RESIDENTS IN THE KEYS AND SOUTHWEST FLORIDA

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of Hurricane Irma – now with Hurricane Jose on its heels.

Here are the latest updates:

• Hurricane Irma, which briefly dipped to category four intensity, is now back up to category five and has made landfall in Cuba.
• Irma is now forecast to hit the Florida Keys on Sunday morning, moving over south-west Florida by Sunday afternoon, then crossing the entire state over approximately 30 hours of ferocious winds and rains.
• On Saturday, Irma continues to rake the north coast of Cuba, where it first hit the Camaguey archipelago on Friday night. It is the first category five storm to make landfall in Cuba for almost a century.
• Saturday will also see tropical storm-force winds lash Florida, ahead of Irma’s arrival. Outer rain bands have already reached the peninsula.
• Florida has ordered 5.6 million people – a quarter of the state’s population – to evacuate, warning that those who do not leave cannot expect rescue services to reach them once Irma hits. A curfew comes into effect in Palm Beach from 3pm on Saturday.
• Florida governor Rick Scott warned on Friday:

If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk.

• In Georgia, 540,000 people on the coast received mandatory evacuation orders.
• The Bahamas meteorological office said the main island of New Providence had been spared the worst as Irma passed close by, but the southern Bahamas had been more badly hit.
• At least 23 people have been confirmed killed in the Caribbean so far. The first victim of Irma was two-year-old Carl Junior Francis in Barbuda. Eleven died on French St Martin and St Barts, four in the US Virgin Islands, three on Puerto Rico, two on Dutch St Maarten and one in Anguilla. A teenage surfer died off Barbados in waves churned up by Irma, and four deaths were reported on the British Virgin Islands that have yet to be corroborated.
• Clear-up efforts on Caribbean islands – to which Britain, France and the Netherlands have sent support – have been hampered by the approaching Hurricane Jose.
• Jose is forecast to hit islands already ravaged by Irma – including Barbuda, Anguilla, St Maarten, St Martin and St Barthélemy – from Saturday. Hurricane Jose, currently a category four, is “almost category five”, the US National Hurricane Center has said.
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