By Izzet Taskiran ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey’s national flag carrier has scheduled additional flight from Miami to Istanbul for this Wednesday. Turkish Airlines’ press office said that an additional flight has been scheduled as a result of Hurricane Irma’s passage. “TK 6882 flight will take off at 3.30 a.m. local time [1030GMT],” the press office said Monday. Irma, which decimated the Caribbean as a top-tier Category 5 hurricane before losing strength after repeated landfalls in the continental U.S., was downgraded to a tropical storm Monday. Hurricane Irma has left around 13 million people in Florida without power and 180,000 without a home. Irma left at least two dozen deaths before churning over Cuba and moving up to the continental U.S.
Ahead of its arrival, the hurricane triggered mass evacuations, with more than 6 million people in Florida and neighboring states asked to flee. The damage from Irma is estimated around $100 billion or 0.5 of a percentage point of U.S. GDP of $19 trillion. Irma is currently tied as the second-strongest Atlantic hurricane, according to the NHC. Only Hurricane Allen, in 1980, was stronger, with peak winds of about 190 mph (305 kilometers per hour).
