Hurricane Irma storm surge to hit Florida Keys, Tampa Bay

Getty Images

In this NOAA-NASA GOES Project handout image, GOES satellite shows Hurricane Irma as it moves over Cuba and towards the Florida coast as a category 4 storm in the Caribbean Sea taken at 14:15 UTC on September 09, 2017.

Hurricane Irma is roaring toward the Florida Keys with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, and the National Hurricane Center warned that it’s bringing a “life-threatening storm surge” that will stretch up the west coast of Florida.

As of 11 p.m. Eastern Saturday, the eye of Irma was still 90 miles from Key West, but was moving northwest toward the Keys at 6 miles per hour.

The NHC issued storm surge warnings for the Keys, and for Tampa Bay on the state’s west coast. Surge warnings also were in effect for the area from North Miami Beach southward around the Florida peninsula, as well as for the area between the South Santee River and Jupiter Inlet.

“A Storm Surge Warning means there is a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, during the next 36 hours in the indicated locations,” the NHC said.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area, which is built around a huge bay that cuts into the mainland, has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in nearly a century.