Residents near Miami whose homes stand in Hurricane Irma’s path of destruction will be offered free accommodation by Airbnb.
The apartment website has set up a special section where property owners can volunteer to list their lodgings in Georgia and other parts of Florida for free, before they are listed as $0 offers for eligible applicants.
Areas around Miami, which is in line for a direct hit, are being boarded up and abandoned.
Airbnb launched its Disaster Response Program in 2012 to aid those affected by natural disasters, and recently helped put a roof over the heads of Houston residents left homeless by Hurricane Harvey.
Airbnbhas set up a special section where property owners can volunteer to list their lodgings for free, before they are listed as $0 offers in eligible areas
Irma pounded Turks in Caicos with some of the strongest winds that any of the islands have seen yet
Areas around Miami, which is in line for a direct hit, are being boarded up and abandoned
The website currently has no more free listings available, and is hoping to see a further influx from generous owners.
Airbnb’s global director of social good, Kim Rubey, said: ‘We are hopeful that our host community will be able to help make the evacuation process easier for residents and their families,’
‘Our thoughts are with everyone who might be impacted by the storm, and we thank the dedicated government and emergency response personnel who are keeping our communities safe.’
The hurricane has left apocalyptic scenes behind it in the Caribbean and killed at least 14 in its deadly path to the United States.
The powerful storm – now downgraded to a category 4 but still extremely dangerous – made landfall in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday evening with winds as high as 175 miles per hour, and isn’t expected to slow down through this morning.
According to Credit Suisse, the storm has the potential to do $125 billion worth of damage – and could even be double that.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Irma’s maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 155 mph while some fluctuations in strength are likely over the next day or two – but it is expected to stay a category 4 storm.
Irma has currently been hitting islands with 185mph winds for 33 straight hours – making it the longest storm of this level of intensity since monitoring by satellites began in the 1970s.
It is also the longest lasting Atlantic storm of 2017, surpassing Harvey by a number of hours.
Hurricane Irma has caused “enormous damage” to the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, the Dutch Royal Navy said on Thursday. The navy, which has two ships stationed off the coast of the island, tweeted images gathered by helicopter showing damaged houses, hotels and boats.
The US National Hurricane Center has warned the islands that Irma might bring waves as high as 20 feet above normal sea
By early Thursday afternoon, the hurricane was north of the Dominican Republic, where authorities reported some flooding and the evacuation of several thousand locals and tourists but no serious damage or casualties.
About a million people are now without power in Puerto Rico after Irma sideswiped the island, but the damage was nothing compared to the smaller islands that were first hit by the storm.
More than 90 percent of all properties on the islands and Barbuda and St Martin were destroyed in the storm, leaving thousands homeless.