KEY LARGO, Fla. -- Hotels in this Upper Keys town were
shuttered at midday Wednesday as Hurricane Irma barreled in the direction of
South Florida as a monstrous Category 5 storm.
Officials in the Keys' Monroe County ordered a mandatory
evacuation of all tourists in the 125-mile chain of islands stretching between
Key West and Key Largo at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.
By 11 a.m., the Key Largo Bay Marriott Beach Resort, one of
the area's largest hotels, had closed, leaving a nearly empty parking lot as
evidence.
"Closed due to evacuation," read the hotel's neon
sign board.
A worker takes the prices down at a Tom Thumb gas station in Key Largo on Wednesday because the pumps were empty. Photo Credit: Robert Silk
Other hotels, including the local Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn
and the nearby Marina Del Mar Resort, had also closed, with some having
completed the process of shuttering each hotel room.
Other sectors of the Upper Keys tourism infrastructure were
also down for the storm.
Across the canal from Marina Del Mar on Wednesday afternoon,
the Rainbow Reef Reef Dive Center, one of approximately 20 dive shops in this
town that calls itself the Diving Capital of the World, had already boarded up
its windows for the storm and workers were in the early stages of figuring out
how to tie Rainbow Reef's two dive boats off in the middle of the canal, where
they could potentially weather a storm surge without crashing ashore or into
the canal's edge.
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Residents, too, were preparing for Irma's wrath ahead of a
mandatory evacuation order set to take effect at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Gas stations were mainly out of fuel and closed, though at
least one in central Key Largo remained open and busy.
Across the canal from Rainbow Reef, Suzi Simpson was
beginning her own prep to position her family's live-aboard sailboat into the
middle of the canal.
Simpson said she is scared for what the next few days will
bring.
"I've got two kids, a dog, a cat, my husband and
myself," she said. "Everything we own is right here."
Simpson added that she hopes her family will be able to stay
at the Courtyard by Marriott next to Rainbow Reef, which is closed to regular
visitors.
"If not, we'll just get in the car and start driving,"
she said.