Hurricane Irma was one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded. It formed near the Cape Verde Islands on 30 August 2017 and, early on 6 September, struck Barbuda as a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of about 180 mph (285 km/h). Over the next few hours it crossed Saint Martin and the British Virgin Islands, then brushed Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas before hitting Cuba and, on 10 September, the Florida Keys and south-west Florida. It held Category 5 strength for 60 hours, the second-longest spell on record.
The US National Hurricane Center counts 46 deaths caused directly by the storm, and dozens more indirect deaths, mostly in Florida. The total damage is estimated at around $77 billion. On Saint Martin, roughly nine in ten buildings were damaged and many were left uninhabitable.
The 30 photographs below were taken by news photographers, military crews and residents during and just after the storm. They are grouped by place, with notes on what each one shows and why it matters. Together they show how a single storm could change daily life across a whole region in a matter of hours.
Getting ready for the storm
Chickens carried to safety
Not every evacuation involved people. Here residents move their chickens out of the storm's path, a reminder that for many households in the Caribbean and the southern United States, livestock and pets are part of the family economy. Emergency managers now routinely urge people to include animals in their evacuation plans, since owners who cannot take them often refuse to leave. Photo: sureasyourebornyourenevergoingtoseenounicorn via Imgur.
Empty water shelves in San Juan
A shopper in San Juan, Puerto Rico, faces bare shelves where bottled water usually stands. Governor Ricardo Rosselló had declared a state of emergency, and residents rushed to stock up before Irma passed north of the island. The fear was justified: about 1.1 million of the power utility's 1.5 million customers lost electricity, and water supplies were disrupted for days. Photo: Alvin Baez (Reuters).
Saint Martin and Sint Maarten
The island shared by France (Saint-Martin) and the Netherlands (Sint Maarten) took the eye of the storm on the morning of 6 September. It suffered some of the worst damage of the whole hurricane, with 15 direct deaths across the island and Saint Barthélemy and losses estimated near $1.5 billion.
Roofs scattered along the coast
Sheets of metal roofing lie in the streets after winds peeled them from houses. Corrugated roofs are common across the Caribbean because they are cheap and quick to fit, but once the wind gets underneath they turn into dangerous flying debris. Losing a roof also exposes the whole interior to rain, which is why so many homes became uninhabitable. Photo: splashnews.
A Philipsburg bar, before and after
This before-and-after pair shows the Honky Tonk bar in Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch side, a nightlife spot popular with cruise passengers. Tourism is the backbone of Sint Maarten's economy, so the destruction of bars, shops and hotels meant lost income for thousands of workers long after the wind had dropped.
Beach Plaza Hotel
The Beach Plaza Hotel, shown here before and after the storm, was one of many resorts left badly damaged. Hotels close to the shore faced both wind and storm surge, and several on the island stayed closed for a year or more while they were rebuilt. Photo: splashnews.
Cars piled up in Marigot
In Marigot, the main town of the French side, wind and water pushed cars into heaps. A storm surge can lift and float vehicles, and when the water drains they settle wherever the current left them. Scenes like this blocked roads and slowed rescue and supply efforts in the first days. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Fire in the ruins at Nettle Bay
Smoke rises over wrecked buildings near Nettle Bay, west of Marigot, the day the storm hit. Fires are a frequent secondary hazard after hurricanes, caused by damaged electrical lines, gas leaks or generators, and they are hard to fight when roads are blocked and water pressure has failed. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Hotel Mercure in ruins
The Hotel Mercure on Nettle Bay was one of the island's best-known resorts. Here its buildings stand gutted after the storm, with walls stripped open to the elements. Its location on a narrow strip of land between a lagoon and the sea left it exposed on both sides. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Flooded streets
Water fills the streets of Saint Martin after the storm. Flooding came from both heavy rain and the surge of seawater pushed ashore by the wind, and it damaged ground floors, cars and electrical systems across low-lying neighbourhoods. Photo: AFP.
The view from a Dutch military aircraft
The Netherlands Ministry of Defence released aerial images like this one to show the scale of the damage. Dutch and French military teams flew in supplies, restored order and helped with evacuations in the days after the storm, as local services were overwhelmed. From the air, the stripped trees and roofless houses show how widely the wind reached. Photo: Netherlands Ministry of Defense.
Broken palms at the Mercure beach
Palm trees are relatively good at bending in high winds, so a beach of snapped trunks shows just how extreme Irma's gusts were. The same stretch of beach in front of the Hotel Mercure appears in other photos in this set. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Princess Juliana Airport and Simpson Bay from above
This aerial image, taken and released by the Dutch defence ministry the day after the storm, shows damage to Princess Juliana International Airport and the nearby Simpson Bay beach on the Dutch side. The airport was the island's main lifeline, so its closure made relief harder until military flights resumed. Photo: Gerben Van Es (Netherlands Ministry of Defence).
Yachts sunk in the harbour
Saint Martin is a major yachting centre, and huge waves overnight sank and smashed boats in its marinas and lagoons. Damaged vessels were still being cleared months later, and wrecks posed a risk to navigation and to the marine environment through fuel leaks. Photo: BACKGRID.
Sand inside a Marigot home
Storm surge does not only bring water. In this Marigot house the sea left behind a thick layer of sand, a sign of how far the waves pushed inland. Cleaning out sand, mud and seawater is slow, heavy work, and salt can ruin wiring and walls long after the water is gone. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Wrecked cars on the beach
Damaged cars lie on a Saint Martin beach where wind and waves deposited them. Thousands of vehicles on the island were written off, and removing and disposing of the wreckage became part of a long clean-up effort. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Another home filled with sand
A second view from Marigot shows sand drifting through the rooms of a house. Many families on the French side waited weeks for electricity, clean water and insurance assessments before they could begin to repair. Photo: Lionel Chamoiseau (AFP).
Princess Juliana Airport, before and after
The airport is world-famous for planes landing low over Maho Beach. After Irma, chunks of the terminal were scattered across the runway and a jet bridge snapped in half. It reopened to relief flights within days, but the main terminal took years to rebuild fully.
The British Virgin Islands
Irma's eye crossed Virgin Gorda on the afternoon of 6 September. Tortola took the brunt of the core, most homes and businesses on Jost Van Dyke were destroyed, and four people died in the territory.
Ivan's Stress Free Bar, Jost Van Dyke
Ivan's was a much-loved beach bar on the small island of Jost Van Dyke, a favourite stop for sailors. The "after" image was shared online by the country singer Kenny Chesney, who has long had close ties to the Virgin Islands. Small family businesses like this one depend almost entirely on visitors, so their loss hit island incomes hard. Photo: Kenny Chesney.
Paraquita Bay, before and after
Paraquita Bay on Tortola is a sheltered inlet traditionally used as a "hurricane hole", where boat owners moor vessels to ride out storms. Irma's winds were so strong that even here boats were thrown on top of one another, as this before-and-after comparison shows. Photo: Reuters.
Dolphin Discovery on Tortola
This pair shows the Dolphin Discovery attraction on Tortola before and after the hurricane. Marine parks on exposed coastlines face particular problems in a storm of this strength, because animals kept in sea pens cannot simply be evacuated like visitors, and damaged enclosures take months to rebuild.
Puerto Rico
Irma's eyewall passed just north of Puerto Rico on 6 September. The island escaped a direct hit, but tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rain still caused widespread outages, and the small island of Culebra lost almost all power and water.
Aftermath on the island
Downed trees and damaged property were a common sight across Puerto Rico after the storm passed. Much of the damage hit an already fragile power grid, which was still recovering when Hurricane Maria struck the island two weeks later. Photo: Thais Llorca (EPA).
Checking a flooded car in Fajardo
Rescue workers from the municipal emergency management agency check an empty flooded car in Fajardo, on Puerto Rico's north-east coast, as the storm passed. Floodwater is one of the biggest killers in hurricanes, and as little as 30 centimetres of moving water can float a car. Photo: Carlos Giusti (AP).
A lone police patrol
A police car drives through an empty, rain-swept street in Fajardo on 6 September 2017, as residents sheltered indoors. Curfews and patrols are standard during major storms, both to keep people out of danger and to deter looting. Photo: Jose Jimenez (Getty Images).
Civil defence teams at work
Members of Puerto Rico's civil defence run through the wind as Irma passes. Emergency staff often stay in the field during the storm itself, ready to respond to calls as soon as conditions allow. Photo: Reuters.
Debris in the Puerto Chico harbour
Storm surge churns debris near the Puerto Chico marina in Fajardo, a busy boating hub on the island's east coast. Floating wreckage can damage hulls and docks and makes harbours hazardous for days afterwards. Photo: Jose Jimenez (Getty Images).
Waves against the seawall
Huge waves crash over a seawall in Fajardo as the storm moves past. Seawalls protect coastal roads and homes from normal tides, but a major hurricane can send water right over them. Photo: Alvin Baez (Reuters).
Dominican Republic and Antigua
Irma passed north of Hispaniola on 7 September. The Dominican Republic avoided the core, but strong winds and heavy rain damaged more than 2,700 homes, and a bridge to Haiti over the Dajabón River broke. Antigua, Barbuda's larger neighbour, stayed just outside the strongest winds.
Dogs sheltering in Samaná
Street dogs take cover from the rain in Samaná, on the Dominican Republic's north-east peninsula, as the first bands of the hurricane arrived. Stray and free-roaming animals have no one to shelter them, and local volunteers often step in during storms. Photo: Tatiana Fernandez (AP).
Clearing a fallen tree in Sánchez
A worker from an electricity company removes a tree brought down by Irma in Sánchez, on Samaná Bay. Fallen trees are the main cause of power cuts in storms, and clearing them is the first step before lines can be repaired. Photo: apimages.
Debris in Nagua
A man walks through debris in Nagua, on the northern coast, as Irma moves away. Coastal towns along this stretch faced storm surge and flooding even though the eye stayed offshore. Photo: Ricardo Rojas (Reuters).
Clearing floodwater in St. John's, Antigua
A woman pushes floodwater out of her property in St. John's, Antigua's capital. Antigua escaped the worst, with some roofs lost, trees uprooted and power lines down, but its sister island Barbuda was devastated: almost the entire population was evacuated to Antigua, and three people died there. Photo: Johnny Jno-Baptiste (AP).
What Irma left behind
By the time Irma weakened over the south-eastern United States, it had caused 46 direct deaths: 36 in the Caribbean and 10 in the United States. Many more people died afterwards from causes linked to the storm, such as accidents during clean-up and the loss of power for medical equipment and air conditioning. NOAA estimates the US damage at around $50 billion, making Irma one of the five costliest hurricanes in American history.
For the islands in these photos, recovery took years. Hurricane Maria swept through parts of the same region later in September 2017, compounding the damage, above all in Puerto Rico. The disaster pushed governments in the region to strengthen building codes, roofs and power grids, and it remains a benchmark for how dangerous a long-lived Category 5 storm can be.
If you live in a hurricane zone, the practical lessons are the same ones these photos illustrate: follow official warnings, plan for pets and animals, keep water and supplies ready, and leave early when told to evacuate.
Sources: National Hurricane Center: Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Irma (AL112017); Wikipedia: Hurricane Irma; photo selection first compiled by Bored Panda. Photos: the photographers and agencies credited under each image.
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