Hurricane Irma turned Miami's Brickell neighborhood into an inland sea
Weeks after Hurricane Harvey dumped enough rain on Houston to turn it into an ocean, Hurricane Irma has driven parts of the Atlantic Ocean into downtown Miami. The city's Brickell neighborhood resembled a building-strewn sea as Irma powered into Florida, bringing wind gusts close to 100 miles per hour in the city.
Even without bearing its full force down on Miami, Irma turned Brickell into a new environment, complete with rivers and wind-whipped waves.
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The images are frightening, but perhaps more disturbing is that Miami sits on the state's southeast, away from the brunt of the storm. Hurricane Irma is wide enough to wreak havoc on the entirety of Florida, but it has directed its worst flooding in the state for the southwest, including Marco Island, Naples, Ft. Myers, Sarasota, and Tampa Bay.
No hurricane has smashed directly into Tampa since 1921, but Irma is now projected to do just that. The area is thought to be at extreme risk for storm surge flooding, meaning the images out of that city could be far worse than what residents of Miami saw.
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
