Hurricane Irma lays waste to all in its path as it heads up Florida’s west coast
San Francisco/Boston/Chicago — Hurricane Irma has knocked out power to at least 4.5-million customers, paralysed tanker traffic and shut about 6,000 petrol stations. As the storm heads up Florida’s west coast, it is also threatening more than $1bn worth of crops. NextEra Energy’s Florida Power & Light utility warned on Sunday that some customers may go without power for weeks, and parts of its system may need to be rebuilt "from the ground up". The company took offline one of two reactors at a nuclear plant south of Miami. Ports critical to supplying the state with petrol and diesel were also closed, and energy companies including Exxon Mobil and Kinder Morgan shut fuel terminals and pipelines. "Fuel deliveries in Florida are virtually nonexistent," Mansfield Oil, a Georgia-based energy supplier, said in a report. "Markets will take time to fully recover, particularly if Irma damages fuelling infrastructure." Irma, now a Category 2 storm forecast to rake all of Florida’s west coast,...
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