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Hurricane Irma pounds Florida

Hurricane Irma, now a Category 1 storm with top sustained winds of 75 mph, was battering Florida Monday with continued hurricane-force winds, torrential rain and dangerous storm surges, killing at least five and leaving nearly 6 million without power.

The storm is headed north this morning toward Gainesville and Tallahassee, bringing dangerous wind gusts with it.

As of 6 a.m., over 5.7 million customers were without power in Florida — that’s roughly 58 percent of all customers in the state. Over 73,000 were powerless in Georgia.

Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys Sunday morning as a Category 4 hurricane with 140-mph winds, the strongest tropical storm to hit Florida since 2004. A storm surge of 10 feet was recorded in the Keys and a record storm surge was reported in Jacksonville Monday morning that exceeded the previous high set by Hurricane Dora in 1964.

Irma moved north into the Florida on Sunday with powerful wind, rain and flooding, swamping parts of Naples and Miami on opposite coasts before and moving to the center of the state. Naples was truck with 142-mph winds, nearly 12 inches of rain and had a 7-foot storm surge. (GMA)

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