Irma struck the state as a Category 4 hurricane but had weakened to a Category 2 with 110mph (177kph) winds.
‘Pray, pray for everybody in Florida,’ the state governor Rick Scott said on Sunday as around 116,000 waited out the hurricane in shelters.
There we no immediate confirmed reports of deaths in Florida, on top of the 24 killed during Irma’s destructive journey across the Caribbean.
More than 2 million homes and businesses across the state lost power, and utility officials said it will take weeks to restore electricity to everyone.
While the projected track showed Irma raking the state’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the entire state – including the Miami metropolitan area of 6 million people – was in danger because of the sheer size of the storm.
Nearly 7 million people in the Southeast were warned to evacuate, including 6.4 million in Florida alone.
Forecasters said a weakened Irma could push into Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and beyond. A tropical storm warning was issued for the first time ever in Atlanta, some 200 miles from the sea.
Irma at one time was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, a Category 5 with a peak wind speed of 185 mph (300 kph). Given its size, strength and projected course, it could still prove one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit Florida.
Source: AP