Cuba evacuated tourists from beachside resorts and Floridians emptied stores of plywood and bottled water after Hurricane Irma left at least 16 people dead and thousands homeless on a devastated string of Caribbean islands and spun toward Florida for what could be a catastrophic blow this weekend.

The hurricane rolled past the Dominican Republic and Haiti and battered the Turks and Caicos Islands early on Friday with waves as high as 6 metres. Communications went down as the storm slammed into the islands, and the extent of the devastation was unclear.

Irma also spun along the northern coast of Cuba, where thousands of tourists were evacuated from low-lying keys off the coast dotted with all-inclusive resorts. All residents of the area were under mandatory evacuation orders from the Cuban government, which was moving tens of thousands of people from vulnerable coastline.

Warships and planes were dispatched with food, water and troops after Irma smashed homes, schools and roads, laying waste to some of the world's most beautiful and exclusive tourist destinations. On the island of St. Thomas, power lines and towers were toppled, leaves were stripped off plants and trees, a water and sewage treatment plant was heavily damaged and the harbour was in ruins, along with hundreds of homes and dozens of businesses.

Thousands of tourists were trapped on St. Martin, St. Barts, and the Virgin Islands in the path of Category 3 Hurricane Jose, which threatened to roll in from the Atlantic and strike as early as Saturday.

Irma weakened from a Category 5 storm to Category 4 on Friday morning with maximum sustained winds near 240 kph, but it remained a powerful hurricane.

Florida braced for the onslaught, with forecasters warning that Irma could slam headlong into the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people, punish the entire length of the state's Atlantic coast and move into Georgia and South Carolina.

For an entire generation in South Florida, Hurricane Andrew was the monster storm that reshaped a region. Irma is likely to blow that out of the water. Bigger and with a 90-degree different path of potential destruction, Irma is forecast to hit lots more people and buildings than 1992's Andrew, said experts, including veterans of Andrew. At the time Andrew was the costliest hurricane in US history with damages of $26.5 billion in 1992 (about $50 billion in current dollars), according to the National Weather Service.

"The effect of Irma on the state of Florida is going to be much greater than Andrew's effect," said Weather Channel senior hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross, who was a local television meteorologist hailed as a hero during Andrew.

Source: Khaleej Times