Irma on Collision Course With Miami After Wrecking Caribbean

Hurricane Irma continued on a collision course with Miami after battering Puerto Rico and devastating a chain of Caribbean islands, as the Category 5 storm threatens to become the most expensive in U.S. history.The life-threatening storm is heading for a direct hit on Florida Sunday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. That prospect has roiled markets for everything from orange juice to insurance and natural gas. Barclays Plc has estimated insured losses in a worst-case scenario from the storm at $130 billion. Irma may reenter the Atlantic and make a second landfall Monday somewhere near Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. “The Southeast Coast of Florida, including Miami, would be expecting potentially catastrophic storm surges Saturday night and Sunday morning,” said Todd Crawford, lead meteorologist at The Weather Company in Andover, Massachusetts. The timing of Irma’s turn on Saturday “will make the difference between a multi-billion dollar storm for Miami and the Gold Coast, and a major, but less devastating, weather event.” Irma is one of three hurricanes churning in the Atlantic Basin. Hurricane Jose was following Irma’s path in the Atlantic, though it’s not expected to make landfall in Florida. In the Gulf of Mexico a third hurricane, Katia, was about 195 miles (315 kilometers) northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, and is forecast to come ashore overnight Friday. Insurers extended their declines Thursday, with XL Group Ltd. dropping as much as 6.3 percent and Everest Re Group Ltd. losing as much as 7.6 percent in intraday trading in New York. Smaller companies that focus on the Florida market had steeper declines. Universal Insurance Holdings Inc. and Federated National Holding Co. fell more than 10 percent. Irma may knock out power to almost 2 million people, curb natural gas demand in one of the largest U.S. markets and threaten $1.2 billion worth of crops in Florida—the top U.S. grower of fresh tomatoes, oranges, green beans, cucumbers, squash and sugarcane. The storm has already damaged or destroyed about 95 percent of homes on the small island of Barbuda, crippled its airport runway and broke a cellular tower in two, complicating relief efforts, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said on national television. “It is absolutely heart-wrenching.” There was massive damage on two French West Indies islands where eight people were killed, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said at a press conference in Paris Thursday. Mandatory Evacuations In the U.S., mandatory evacuations were issued for the Florida Keys and other areas. President Donald Trump said in a Twitter post on Wednesday that he is “watching hurricane closely” and his team is already in the state. Irma comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey smashed ashore in Texas, knocking offline almost a quarter of U.S. oil refining capacity and causing widespread power outages and flooding. Current models show Irma veering away from gas and oil platforms off the coast of Texas and Louisiana, sparing Houston more devastation. Irma’s top winds held at 175 miles an hour meaning it’s still at Category 5 strength, the highest measure on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale. It was about 65 miles northeast of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, as of about 2 p.m. New York time, according to the hurricane center. Irma’s eye will pass between Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos islands Thursday entering the Bahamas overnight and passing through the chain Friday, where it could bring as much as 25 inches of rain and a storm surge of as much as 20 feet. Hurricane-strength winds now reach out 60 miles from the eye, up from 50 miles earlier. A strike on Miami at Category 4 strength could lead to insured losses of $125 billion to $130 billion, Jay Gelb, an analyst at Barclays, wrote in a note Tuesday. Uninsured losses would add to that. Total losses from Katrina reached $160 billion in 2017 dollars after it slammed into New Orleans in 2005. In other storm news:

• Orange juice futures traded near their highest level since May.
• American Airlines Group Inc. canceled 2,185 flights Thursday through Monday and will stop all flights from Miami and three other Florida cities Friday afternoon, the airline said in an email statement.
• Limetree Bay Terminals’ St. Croix oil facility in the U.S. Virgin Islands has been shut since Tuesday evening, according to person familiar with operations.