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Updated at 3.10pm
IRMA PICKED UP strength and has become an “extremely dangerous” Category Five hurricane, as it moved toward the Leeward Islands early this morning, sparking alarm and alerts from the Caribbean to Florida, which declared an emergency.
“Preparations should be rushed to completion in the hurricane warning area,” the National Hurricane Center said in its 12.00pm GMT bulletin.
The monster hurricane, the most powerful of the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, is about 440 kilometres east of the island of Antigua packing maximum sustained winds of 280 kilometres per hour.
Irma is expected to make landfall along the string of French islands that includes Guadeloupe late today before heading to Haiti and Florida.
The storm was moving towards the west at 22 kilometres per hour, and is expected to drop between four and 10 and 20 centimetres of rain when it hits land.
“These rainfall amounts may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” the NHC warned.
The storm is also is expected to “cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions”.
Irma, which has triggered alarm and alerts from the French West Indies to Florida, comes after of Hurricane Harvey devastated parts of Texas and Louisiana late last month.
US carrier in position
A US aircraft carrier with a field hospital and dozens of aircraft able to conduct rescue or supply missions has been positioned protectively in the area, according to Alejandro de la Campa of the Caribbean division of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Local press identified the carrier as the USS Kearsarge.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto ordered 900 municipal employees – police, emergency personnel, and aid and social workers – to report for rotating 12-hour shifts.
Even if that island is spared a direct hit, the mayor said, three days of pounding rain will do heavy damage.
Irma’s precise path remains unclear. But several projections have it passing over the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba before turning north toward Florida and then possibly swinging up the US East Coast.
Scrambling amid the uncertainty, Florida declared a state of emergency to facilitate preparations.
For now, hurricane warnings have been issued for the islands of Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Martin, Sint Maarten, St. Barthelemy, Saba and St. Eustatius; the British Virgin Islands; US Virgin Islands; Puerto Rico, Vieques and Culebra. A warning means hurricane conditions are expected in the next 36 hours.
Anne Laubies, prefect of Saint Barthelemy warned the hurricane posed the greatest danger the island had faced in 20 years with more people endangered in flood-prone areas because of a rise in population.
Long queues of people rushed to get batteries and bottled water, while many cut trees around their dwellings and sought to tie down objects and caulk their windows.
A hurricane watch – meaning hurricane conditions are possible within 48 hours – has been issued for Guadeloupe.
Irma is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 7.6-15 cm across the Leeward Islands, with isolated maximum amounts of 25 cm across the northern Leeward Islands.
- © AFP 2017.
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“People are slowing down at the go system cameras because they know where they are”. Erm isn’t that the point? Saving lives?! Think the lament is on lost revenue or am I being too cynical?!
That’s how it reads.
Personally I think it it wasn’t about revenue they would have made local speed limit sensitive (dynamic) speed limiters a mandatory condition of sale of vehicles long ago. The technology is there.
There is normally a Gardai speed van just down from the main roundabout at Dublin airport, In all my years working at the airport I’ve never seen or heard of an accident on that particular stretch of road.
It is nothing more than revenue generating ,As for the go safe company didn’t a well known business man get the contract who was a friend of Bertie.
I’d love to see the stats on what speeds people were caught at.
“There is normally a Gardai speed van just down from the main roundabout at Dublin airport, In all my years working at the airport I’ve never seen or heard of an accident on that particular stretch of road.”
Probably because there is “There is normally a Gardai speed van just down from the main roundabout at Dublin airport” and everyone obeys the speed limit so “In all (your) years working at the airport (you’ve) never seen or heard of an accident on that particular stretch of road.”
I take it you are not familiar with the stretch of road that I mentioned, It starts at the major roundabout at the airport and finishes about 1 km when you come to another roundabout for the M1.
Three lanes all going in the same direction revenue generating if you ask me.
I know the road, but you are failing to link the lack of accidents with the presence of the speed van.
No speed van, people will speed and there will be accidents.
The reason you don’t see accidents is, as you say yourself, there is normally a speed van there.
speed cameras have had no effect on saving lives, cause all speed camera are on dual carridgeways and main roads, most deaths occur in the country on secondary roads.
speed cameras just as you come out of airport. N11, N4, N3, . they list these as blackspots, and maybe they were many years ago before they improved the roads, but now they are just easy targeting areas. speed limits are too low for the type of road, you spend more time looking at yer speedo than the road
If speed cameras weren’t about raising revenue then the system would be changed to average speed cameras. Instead of people speeding along the road then slowing down where they know there is usually a van the speeding back up, people would actually have to obey the speed limit on the entire stretch of road.
Also the fact that fpc notices are not sent by registered post is a joke. You can simply say when summonsed that you never received the original charge notice and had no way of knowing you needed to pay and take the 2 points. Judges are copping onto this now and not taking it as a defence, but what if you actually didn’t receive the notice?!! I know people that have appealed to high court after district court didn’t take the above as a defence and it was overturned on appeal
Surely the judges have to take denial of receipt as a defence. The burden of proof is on the state, no? “Prove I received it. You can’t? Ok – see you later.” Shouldn’t have to appeal it at all.
You’d think that wouldn’t you?! But just in the same way a guard can pull you over if he thinks he saw you hold your phone, if it goes to court you pretty much have no defence. A judge will always take the gards word over the member of the publics.
Sending penalty charges by registered post would solve the problem over night. But it’s a broken system from the ground up.
Ignoring lots of this government theft (aka taxes and fines) works. Try it. I’ve stood up to many solicitors and guards ad they back off.
Oh not a popular point of view I see. It is however true that if you go to court for some of these offences they are struck out because a lot of people are being fined because they accept & admit to it. Due process has been replaced in these cases until you stand up for yourself. If you go on youtube you will see how many ways its possible to overturn these offences unless you are doing stupid kmh.
So give people ways to endanger lives without fear of penalty, well done
Endangering lives, don’t talk such manure. Speeding does not kill, bad driving does. You could drive past a ‘gosafe’ van in a with no tax, no insurance, no driving licence, no nct, no brakes, bald tyres, off your tits on coke, speed and LSD, with a boot full of explosives and corpses and as long as you’re watching your speed, you’re safe???
LIES AND LET ME TE YOU WHY….if speed checks and cameras were about safety they would be highly visible and also people should be given well advanced warnings of where they are like in other countries example on the raidio etc. At the end of the day it is should be about getting people to slow down rather than given points and a fine.
The ultimate aim is to get gossfe to be allowed ti setup anywhere. This will ensure max revenue generation as it basically will be shooting fish in a barrwll hiding and been around corners where speef changes suddenly.
This whole Gosafe as so many know are usually where there is max revenue generation but no crashes etc.
Or you could just follow the speed limits.
Or the yellow. Rick road
How come I don’t see the guards at obvious black spots. There’s a stretch of road near where I live that has a sign saying black spot on it that’s totally dangerous. I’ve never seen a guard there yet on a slip road coming off a motorway nearby which is a three laned mile long downhill bit where they always are. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.it just doesn’t seem to make sense.
Because we have enough Gardai to pull them away from all duties to stand at a Black Spot sign
another money grabing exercise from a pack of no hopers come trhe next election
I honestly dont think speed cameras are having much of an impact on road deaths.They are placed in areas where the roads are 3 and 4 lanes wide with ridiculously low speed limits.its entrapment at best.The M4 at liffey valley being a prime example.Its four lanes wide with a speed limit of 80km/h (think it used to be 60!!) as you come up off the M50 and I for one in all my years driving into work have never seen anything other than a brushing of bumpers on this stretch of road.Id be very surprised if theres ever been a death there since it was upgraded.Its absolutely crazy that such a stretch of road should be subject to the same speed limits you can find down most country lanes where alot of these fatalities happen.How often do you hear of road deaths in the capital at all?im sure they happen but Id love to see the figures of where these accidents actually happen.Its easy to say the cameras are having an impact on road deaths when they’re placed on the widest,best lit and generally safest sections of our roads.
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