Hurricane Irma, demoted Friday in category 4, was raging in the Caribbean where its furious winds and torrential rains killed at least twelve people while it makes Cuba and Florida tremble.
This cyclone, previously classified as category 5, at the top of the ladder, remains extremely dangerous, accompanied by sustained winds of 250 km / h, said the American National Hurricane Center (NHC).
On Friday, the eye of the cyclone heading west was south of the Bahamas, less than 150 km northeast of Cuba. Cuba was on high alert while 10,000 tourists were ordered to leave their hotels or residences on the most exposed coasts.
Irma is expected to return to the southeast coast of the United States, first striking Florida, then Georgia and South Carolina. According to the NHC, the eye of the cyclone will be on Sunday near the Keys, a string of islands in the extreme south of Florida. Mandatory evacuation orders have already been issued for the coastal areas of Florida and Georgia, involving nearly one million people, the largest evacuation since 2005.
Florida governor Rick Scott has ordered all schools to close Friday to Monday as shelters.
Hurricane Irma is "really destructive" when it arrives in Florida, warned Brock Long, head of the US emergency agency (Fema) on CNN on Thursday.
Winds at 295 km / h
Before being demoted, it generated winds at 295 km / h for more than 33 hours, breaking the record of super typhoon Haiyan, which in 2013 in the Philippines had produced the same winds for 24 hours.
"An intensity of such a longevity is unheard of in the world since the beginning of the satellite era", some fifty years ago, underlined Météo France.
Some 1.2 million people have already been affected, a number that could rise to 26 million, according to the Red Cross. At least two people were killed in Puerto Rico, four in the US Virgin Islands, five in the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin (at least four on the French side and one on the Dutch side) and one in Barbuda.
In Puerto Rico, more than half of the 3 million people were without electricity and shelters were opened to accommodate up to 62,000 people.
In Haiti, Irma caused a sharp rise in waters in the northeast and strong winds swept away the roofs of the houses. In the islands already struck by Irma, the inhabitants described a spectacle of desolation.
In Saint-Martin, everything was "blown" as "by an atomic bomb", testified on the channel Franceinfo Dany Magen-Verge, inhabitant of this island known for its paradisiac beaches where more than 60% of houses are now uninhabitable.
On the Dutch side as well as French, the authorities reported looting. This is a "serious" problem, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the port and airport had been "reopened for military use." French overseas minister Annick Girardin spoke on Thursday of "looting carried out just before his eyes" during a day of recognition in Saint Martin and the nearby French island of St. Bartholomew.
In Saint-Barthélemy, very popular with the jet set, the damage is also considerable and the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe reported about fifty wounded.
The island of Barbuda (1600 inhabitants), hit first by the hurricane is "totally devastated," according to Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, an independent territory.
He said in passing that the hurricane had to convince "those who do not believe in climate change".
The British island of Anguilla was also completely shaved. Damage in excess of $ 290 million
The cost of damage in the French West Indies is expected to be "much higher" than 200 million euros (about C $ 290 million), according to the head of the French reinsurer Caisse centrale de réassurance (CCR).
The aid began to be organized, with an air bridge planned from the French island of Guadeloupe to Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, where it will take "weeks and months" for a return to normal electricity , warned EDF, the French energy operator.
The Netherlands announced the dispatch of two military aircraft to Saint Martin and two Dutch military vessels are on the area.