Keys keeping their eyes on powerful Hurricane Irma

In the wake of historic devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey in Texas, now comes intimidating Irma, already a Category 3 storm on Friday that may intensify.

Early projections of Irma’s possible path cover a wide swath from south of the Cuba to the U.S. Middle Atlantic states, or even an eastward turn into the Atlantic Ocean.

Irma is not expected to reach the outer rim of the Caribbean until early Tuesday, when it will still be several days away from a possible U.S. landfall. Friday, Irma was still about 2,500 miles from the U.S. coast.

“Irma is expected to remain a powerful hurricane through the weekend,” the National Hurricane Center reported at midday Friday. “Maximum sustained winds are near 110 mph with higher gusts.”

“We’re looking at the ‘bubble of doom’ that is the five-day mark, which we think will be Tuesday morning,” Monroe County Emergency Management Director Mary Senterfitt said Friday. “That’s when we would really stand up and get active. But we’ve been watching and working Irma all week.”

Florida Keys residents always must keep watch on the tropics and be ready during peak hurricane season, Senterfitt said.

“Don’t try to prepare for a single storm,” he said. “Be prepared for a season. Don’t try to guess which storm might be the one.”

“Irma’s out there now and there’s another blob behind it,” Senterfitt said. “We could be doing this on multiple occasions over the next eight or nine weeks.”

The average peak of Hurricane season is Sept. 10, although storms may continue to affect South Florida through October.

Local wind damage from Hurricane Wilma on Oct. 25, 2005, was not extensive but Wilma did bring “the worst storm-surge inundation throughout most of the Florida Keys since Hurricane Betsy” on Sept. 8, 1965, notes Key West’s city website.

This story was originally published September 2, 2017 at 8:52 AM with the headline "Keys keeping their eyes on powerful Hurricane Irma."