As Hurricane Irma has moved over Naples and Fort Myers and continues to head north up the Florida coast toward Tampa, hundreds of thousands of residents face nightfall without electricity, even as potentially disastrous storm surges upwards of ten to 15 feet could flood into the area in the coming hours.
The National Weather Service saw water levels began to rise around Naples shortly after 4pm, when the eye of the storm shifted north. NWS forecasters say powerful winds will drive storm suggests in many coastal cities. Surges between 10 to 15 feet "above ground level" are expected, hurricane forecasters said.
Forecasters with the Florida Public Emergency Network say the Irma is now moving north to the Fort Myers area, with the strongest winds now east of Fort Myers in the area of 80-100 mph. Lehigh Acres and Immokalee are seeing even stronger winds, forecasters say.
The latest forecast shows Irma staying inland, and possibly continuing to weaken, over the next few hours. However, the caution the storm could possibly move back over the gulf on its way north to Tampa, and possibly strengthen
On the way, FPREN forecasters say Sarasota and Bradenton will likely see "many many hours" of wind coming off large bodies of water in the coming hours. Hurricane-force winds will arrive in Tampa about midnight, they say. As the storm moves north, tropical force winds will extend across the Florida peninsula, and all along the Atlantic coast, for at least the next 12 hours.
As the storm moves toward Tampa Sunday night, utilities across Southwest Florida show more than 400,000 customers without power.
Florida Power and Light reports hundreds of thousands of customers without power across multiple counties: in Lee County, more than 173,380 are without power; in Hendry, 9,700; in Lee, 171,410 have no power; in Charlotte, 15,730, 40,660 without power in Sarasota.
Lee County Electric Cooperative's online map tracking power outages show multiple regions of Southwest Florida showing more than 2,000 customers having lost power. In all, LCEC said by Sunday night 131,000 customers were without power.
