A Florida bakery has prepared a bespoke cake as Hurricane Irma heads towards the east coast – urging the 175mph storm to ‘go away’.
The $11.99 cake was made by Publix Bakery, which has stores all over America, showing a bird’s eye picture of a tornado iced onto the top like a weather map, accompanied by the words ‘Go Away Irma’.
Irma, which has left apocalyptic scenes as behind it in the Caribbean and killed at least 14 in its deadly path to the United States, is currently battering the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The powerful category five storm made landfall in the British islands on Thursday evening with winds as high as 175 miles per hour, and isn’t expected to slow down through Friday morning.
Publix Bakery has prepared this bespoke cake as Hurricane Irma heads towards the east coast, urging the storm to ‘go away’
The top of the cake resembles a weather map such as this. Irma is currently pounding Turks in Caicos with some of the strongest winds that any of the islands have seen yet
The Turks and Caicos are being battered by Hurricane Irma, which has made its way through the Caribbean and killed at least 14 in its deadly path to the United States. Pictured is the island of Providenciales
According to Credit Suisse, the storm has the potential to do $125 billion worth of damage – and could even double that depending on the damage it does to Miami.
American journalist Kaitlyn Ross posted the picture on Facebook, accompanied by the caption ‘Publix Bakery for the WIN: GO AWAY IRMA! Stay safe friends’.
The cake was largely well received, with many people praising the chain for trying to bring some light to a terrifying natural disaster.
One commenter, Peggy Gerds, said: ‘Bringing a little art and humor into a tough and frightening situation can’t be all bad.’
Another, Amy Feige added: ‘Good grief I’m tempted to go get one of those’.
Many people on the island (who could not evacuate) were moved to shelters, and any heavily pregnant women or people on dialysis were moved to hospitals. Pictured is the island of Providenciales
The powerful category five storm made landfall in the British Overseas on Thursday evening and isn’t expected to slow down through Friday morning. Pictured is the island of Providenciales
Deadly: The current location of the hellish Hurricane Irma can be seen above, just northeast of Cuba and north of Haiti. In its wake comes Hurricane Jose – a category 3 hurricane expected to batter some of the eastern Caribbean islands before heading north
However, others felt that the design was inappropriate.
Maryanne Kehoe posted: ‘I am for all raising awareness of severe weather but I am uncomfortable with what Publix did trying to profit off misery JMO everyone’s mileage may vary.’
Hurricane Jose, which is following behind Irma on an near-identical path, has strengthened to a category 3 storm and is getting ready to hit the same island with winds of up to 120mph.
Of the 14 people confirmed as dead in the storm so far: Eight were on the French/Dutch island of St Martin, three in Puerto Rico, while the islands of Anguilla, Barbados and Barbuda recorded a death each.