Panama _ Agencies
The devastating cyclone (Michael), which has been reduced to a tropical storm, has killed at least 11 people since it arrived in the Florida coast on Wednesday, after authorities announced Friday the death of five people in the state of Virginia.
"Five confirmed deaths related to Michael," said a tweet from the state´s emergency services in the south of Washington.
The storm passed through Virginia on Thursday night and headed north to Florida, later moving away from the US territory and lowering its ranking.
The same source said 520 thousand families were deprived of electricity.
Meanwhile, authorities in the district of Gadesden, Florida, said, "Four related deaths can now be confirmed" with the passage of the hurricane, without revealing the identities of the victims. An 11-year-old girl was also killed in the state of Georgia, according to the official of the rescue teams.
In North Carolina, a man was killed after a tree fell on a car, the state said on Thursday evening.
The classification of the cyclone, which was in the fourth category (on a scale of five degrees), was reduced to the first category on Wednesday evening and the wind speed reached 150 kilometers per hour.
At about 4:00 p.m., a tropical storm was reported as it passed to Georgia, accompanied by heavy rains and winds exceeding 110 kilometres per hour.
Hundreds of thousands of people were deprived of power in several states in southeastern United States on Thursday, including some 390 thousand in Florida, 130,000 in South Carolina and 220,000 in South Carolina.
After cutting off Florida, the hurricane continued its way towards Alabama and Georgia and then toward South Carolina and north.
In Panama City, the seaside resort on the Florida coast, the wind speed reached 250 kilometers by Wednesday for almost three hours, according to an Agence France Presse correspondent.
Brick buildings collapsed and trees were uprooted, leading to the closure of roads and the cutting of electrical lines, an AFP correspondent reported.
"We heard the wind blowing like a huge giant on TV," said Lauren Beltran of the city on the coast, where she turned to her friend´s house.
"Michael is the most severe hurricane that hits the coast of northwestern Florida, which stretches to the Gulf of Mexico, since the beginning of the collection of information on this subject in 1851," said Brock Long, head of the U.S. Agency for the management of emergency services when he told US president Donald Trump about developments in the White House.
Photos published on social media showed a section of Mexico Beach, 30 kilometres from that area, and houses soaked in water to their roofs, some of which were uprooted.
Florida Governor Rick Scott said at a press conference Wednesday that "the whole nation and the world witnessed this huge hurricane ruining our part of the Gulf and the Sahel" in northwestern Florida.
For his part, Trump said during a rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening, "I will go very quickly to Florida " and "wish them the best."
The National Cyclone Center referred to flood-induced floods on the coast.
The meteorological department warned that Hurricane Michael "could be disastrous" especially on the coasts with very heavy rains.
Tens of shelters were opened to accommodate the thousands of people who fled before the arrival of the hurricane.
Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, which closed its airport Wednesday, turned into a ghost town. A witness named Kaitlyn Stanwick, 28, recounted that the city was desolate and the majority of shops closed.
Some 375 thousand people from more than 20 districts in Florida have been ordered to evacuate their homes by the media, but some have decided to challenge the storm.
Philip Clitzbach, a hurricane specialist at the University of Colorado, told Agence France-Presse that the continental United States had never seen a hurricane at a similar speed in the month October October. This month is basically the end of the hurricane season, which begins in June (June).
Trump was on Tuesday declaring a state of emergency in 35 districts in Florida, which made it possible to monitor major additional aid.
Officials in neighboring Alabama and Georgia also declared a state of emergency. North Carolina, which was hit in mid-September (September) by Hurricane Florence, placed about 40 people dead and caused billions of dollars in casualties, in a state of alert.
