Weather

With just hours left until landfall, sometime on Sunday morning, Hurricane Irma is edging ever closer to Florida and has started to batter the state with Hurricane force winds as millions brace for the impact of the most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade.

According to ABC and AP, the National Weather Service measured a 74-mph gust in the Florida Keys on Saturday night, marking the beginning of hurricane-force winds that forecasters say will steadily intensify in the coming hours.

An analysis by Climate Central shows that the Florida storm surge from hurricane Irma could endanger millions, and result in billions in property damage.

According to Climate Central, it has created the following resources to help anyone remaining in the area visually understand how dangerous the flooding will be in their neighborhood and take safety measures accordingly.

After "carving a path of destruction through the Caribbean," a path which left 90% of Barbuda "uninhabitable" and nearly a million people without power in Puerto Rico, a slightly weakened, but still devastatingly massive Category-4 Hurricane Irma is closing in on Florida.  Here is the latest from the National Hurricane Center:

In what spokesman Michael Hernandez describes as "the biggest evacuation in history," Miami-Dade has expanded its mandatory evacuations orders to Zone C, forcing over 650,000 to leave Florida in a "traffic nightmare" as Cat-5 Hurricane Irma bears down.

An earlier order included just Miami Beach, other low-lying and barrier island areas and all mobile-home residents, but as the storm grew in intensity and the cone of uncertainty narrowed, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued the order this afternoon expanded to Zone C.

As Hurricane Irma looks to be hurdling straight for a direct hit on Southern Florida, meteorologists from Weather Underground are warning that the most devastating impacts of the storm could be felt much further north in towns along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina where the storm surge could be a catastrophic 20-28 feet high in certain areas.  To put that in perspective, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 set a record for the largest storm surge ever recorded along the U.S. coast at 27.8 feet.