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VICE News

Irma Slams Florida as Category 4 Leaving a Million Without Power

Gov. Rick Scott ordered the largest evacuation in US history with 6.3 million ordered to seek shelter from potential building-high storm surges and life-threatening winds.

The Florida Keys are on lockdown Sunday morning as the eye of Hurricane Irma, upgraded to Category 4 overnight, made landfall at 9:10 AM. At 390 miles wide, with wind gusts of 160 milers per hour and a shifting trajectory, the monster storm has left few places to run. Floridians zigzagged the state over the weekend as Irma drifted west and Gov. Rick Scott ordered the largest evacuation in US history with 6.3 million ordered to seek shelter from potential building-high storm surges and life-threatening winds.

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While South Florida learned it would be spared the worst Saturday, Irma's new course just meant a more brutal hell for the state's southwest coast. Irma looks set to hug the warm Gulf coastline all the way to Tampa—Florida's second largest metro area and most vulnerable flooding target. With low-lying land and shallow waters in massive Tampa Bay, Irma has nowhere to push the water but inland.

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