Hurricane Irma swept through the Sunshine State, finally hitting the city of Tampa and its surrounding areas on Sunday night. Irma mowed over the Caribbean as a Category 5 storm, and the National Hurricane Center predicted that Irma was headed for Hillsborough County as a Category 4. However, the storm is traveled much more northward as people predicted and devolved into a tropical storm about 100 miles north of Tampa.
“Irma weakened Monday morning from hurricane to a tropical storm as it moved about 100 miles north of Tampa, according to the National Hurricane Center, which said it was still producing some wind gusts near hurricane force,” reports the Washington Post.
However, this doesn’t mean that Tampa wasn’t badly affected by the storm. Several areas were reportedly hit by high wind gusts and heavy rain for several hours. The areas which received the most destruction as a result of Irma are Davis Island and South Tampa. Much of the damage consisted of downed trees, while other damage includes the flooding of homes resulting from storm surges. Roughly 1.4 million people in the Tampa area were left without power, but that issue is already being worked upon by crews attempting to restore the power as soon as possible.
Irma hit Polk County, Orlando, Marco Island, and Miami very hard. The storm is still bringing down heavy rain towards northern Florida on Monday. Areas positioned to the east of the eye got the brunt of Irma’s wrath.
Look below to see some incredible photos, showing the damage that Irma has brought to Tampa. Some areas were hit worse than others, but a hurricane is always hell…
Trees and power-lines fell. Houses were damaged…
Here’s another look at some disarray…
It looks like this tree got yanked up by the root…
Tampa police lieutenant Rich Mills surveys the debris lying off Westshore Boulevard…
A billboard got knocked down. So much for advertisement…
There’s an eerie calm after the storm…
Police block off a downed power pole…
In the Tampa area, the Davis Island received the most damage…
This photo of a downed tree beside debris looks incredibly artist to me…
Here’s footage surveying the storm damage from Hurricane Irma in Tampa…