Is Hurricane Irma Over? Tropical Depression Brings Rain From Tennessee To Carolinas

Ten days after officially becoming a hurricane, Irma was downgraded early Tuesday to a post-tropical cyclone, or tropical depression. After delivering a final blow to the state of Florida Monday, the storm brought winds of about 25 mph as it moved toward Tennessee early Tuesday morning.

As the storm continued on its path, South Carolina, Georgia and parts of Alabama remained in danger of flash flooding, the National Hurricane Center warned. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal told residents of the state to continue sheltering until the storm had officially passed through the state.

And while Irma was still bringing heavy rain to parts of the region, all tropical storm warnings were canceled by Monday and the storm was expected to weaken significantly before dissipating altogether. The storm’s slowdown, however, merely marked the beginning of what would be an extensive cleanup and recovery operation.

“The next couple of days and couple of weeks – probably months, in a lot of spots – are going to be very busy for a lot of people rebuilding,” said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for the Weather Channel, according to NBC News.

Irma’s death toll so far amounted to 11 people – only three of whom were killed as a direct result of the storm, according to initial reports. Parts of the Caribbean and Florida bore the brunt of the storm’s devastation: the small island of Barbuda emerged from the storm “barely habitable,” while more than seven million people remained without power in Florida Monday.

Damage was still being assessed in the Florida Keys: the island chain remained somewhat cut off from communication after highways into the area were rendered impassable by the storm. Initial reports out of the regions showed catastrophic damage: an estimated 25 percent of houses in the Keys were destroyed, while another 65 percent had severe damage, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday. One reporter described it as a “war zone.”

“Basically, every house in the Keys was impacted in some way,” said FEMA administrator Brock Long, according to CNN.

After forging a warpath through the Caribbean and up through the United States, Irma emerged as a storm for the record books. The hurricane’s winds were clocked at 185 mph for 37 hours, the longest on record, NPR reported.

A total of nine states in the nation were impacted by Irma. A preliminary estimate by research firm Moody’s Analytics assessed that Irma caused up to $92 billion in damage in the United States alone, according to NBC News.