Hurricane Irma: Eye of storm hits Florida west coast
The centre of Hurricane Irma has hit mainland Florida, just south of Naples, amid warnings of storm surges as high as 15ft (4.5m).
Irma has been downgraded to a category three storm, but made landfall on Marco Island off Florida’s west coast with winds of up to 120mph (192km/h).
More than 1m homes in the state are without power, and parts of the city of Miami are under water.
Irma has devastated parts of the Caribbean, killing at least 27 people.
Some 6.3 million people in Florida had been told to evacuate.
The storm hit Marco Island at 15:35 local time (19:35 GMT). It had earlier barrelled through the Florida Keys, a chain of low-lying islands to the south.
The whole of the southern tip of Florida has seen high winds, driving rain and storm surges,
About 2ft (60cm) of water has been seen in Miami’s financial district, where one major street resembled a river, but the worst damage is expected on the west coast.
President Donald Trump described the hurricane as a “big monster”. He praised the federal agencies involved with the storm and said he would go to Florida “very soon”.
