I don't take the things that weather experts say too seriously. They really don't know. Irma has weakened sooner than expected and is now a strong category 4. The weakening might just be eye wall restructuring (which takes about 12 hours to complete) for all I know, in which case there's still time for it to rebuild, but if it's due to cold water, Irma could drop to a 3 before it comes ashore.
Hurricane Andrew, in the early '90s, hit in almost the same place as a category 5. So what's the basis for calling Irma the worst hurricane ever? As far as I'm concerned, we'll never have a hurricane that rivals the one that hit Galveston more than a hundred years ago. 8,000 dead.
If Irma moves even a few miles to the west, it will pass over the Everglades and do vastly less damage while rapidly weakening. It's also moving quickly (16mph right now), so its rains shouldn't cause too much flooding. (But storm surge still might.)
Irma is going to be a bruiser for anyone in its path, but if its landfall isn't at or near Miami or if it isn't at least a strong 4, it won't approach Harvey in its overall destruction. Even twenty miles from the eye wall, winds will be dramatically lower.
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