St. Pete Enacts Curfew As Irma Nears

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — As Hurricane Irma pounds the Florida Keys on a course likely to have devastating consequences for the Tampa Bay area, the city of St. Petersburg has enacted a curfew.

The emergency curfew goes into effect at 5 p.m. Sept. 10 due to the weather. It will remain in effect throughout the duration of the storm, an email from the St. Petersburg Police Department said. (For more hurricane news or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from St. Pete Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

“All residents need to be off the roads and taking shelter,” the email said. “Once winds reach 40+ mph, police and fire will no longer be able to respond to citizen calls. They will resume responding once conditions are safe.”

Also See: What Exactly Is Storm Surge, And Why Does It Have Floridians Worried?

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Hurricane Irma was bearing down on the Florida Keys just before 10 a.m. Sunday. The ferocious storm that tore through the Caribbean, leaving at least 20 people dead in its wake, was packing maximum sustained winds of 130 mph as it crawled at 8 mph toward South Florida.

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