President Donald Trump announced on Sunday he would make a trip to south Florida in the near future, while in the meantime keeping an eye on Hurricane Irma’s progress on the state’s west coast, The Hill reports.
“We’re going to Florida very soon. It’s going to play out over the next five or six hours. I’m going in now for meetings, but it’s all about coordination. I think we’re really well coordinated, as well as you can possibly be,” Trump told reporters.
Trump announced his visit as Irma makes its way north after making landfall on Florida’s southwestern coast. While the entire state will be impacted, the storm made a westward turn earlier this weekend.
“It’s just about the biggest ever recorded that hit land, and unfortunately we got it. We may have been a little bit lucky in that it went on the west, and may not have been quite as destructive, but we’re going to see,” Trump stressed.
Population centers such as Naples are expected to be inundated with winds and life-threatening storm surges on Sunday afternoon, while Tampa is set to experience later this evening its biggest hurricane since 1921.
Trump’s famous resort, Mar-a-Lago, closed as Irma approached the state, and guests at his Doral hotel were being advised to make lodging arrangements elsewhere as the storm approached.
Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys around 9 a.m. Saturday, packing 130 mph winds.
A record 6.3 million people were ordered to evacuate from Florida’s coastal and southern areas last week. Florida Governor Rick Scott said over 400 shelters have been opened across the state.
Be the first to comment