Miami : Millions of Florida residents were without power and extensive damage was reported in the Florida Keys but most of the Sunshine State appeared to have dodged forecasts of catastrophic damage from Hurricane Irma.
The monster storm roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane when it hit the Keys southern island chain on Sunday, ripping boats from their moorings, flattening palm trees and downing power lines, after devastating a string of Caribbean islands.
By the time it hit the peninsula the storm had been downgraded and weakened further to a tropical depression late Monday.
But while Florida may have escaped the worst, the death toll jumped to at least 40 after Cuba said 10 people had been killed there over the weekend as Irma spun northward.
Across the Caribbean, hard-hit residents struggled to get back on their feet as Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States ramped up relief efforts for their overseas territories.
Florida residents who spent an anxious night huddled indoors were venturing out Monday to survey the damage, which did not seem to be as bad as initially feared.
"If this had been a Category 4 hurricane the whole scenario would have been completely different," said Bob Lutz, a 62-year-old business owner.
More than 6.5 million customers in Florida were without power, however, and Governor Rick Scott said the Keys had suffered a lot of damage.
"It's horrible what we saw," Scott said after flying over the island chain with the Coast Guard.
He said the water, electricity and sewage systems in the Keys were all non-operational and that trailer parks had been "overturned."
"We now go through the much longer phase, which is the recovery phase. And believe me, folks, some of this is going to take a while, especially power restoration," Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez cautioned.
Most Keys residents had followed mandatory evacuation orders, but there were some holdouts who had to hunker down as Irma slammed into the low-lying tourist archipelago known for its fishing, scuba diving and boating.
The storm downed power lines, felled trees and left debris and vehicles strewn across the streets. But concrete homes appeared to have withstood the gusts.
