Florida Keys, USA - Sept 13, 2017
1. Blown away boats along roadside
2. Various of destroyed houses, debris
3. Family of local resident Larry Cumiskey
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Larry Cumiskey, local resident:
"We were here. We owned a big house on the ocean which we thought was going to be safe cause it was three stories. The house basically caved in. We barely made it."
5. Family of Cumiskey
6. Exterior of T-shirt store
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Larry Cumiskey, local resident:
"The business is gone. Like I said, we didn't think we were even going to live through it."
8. Various of destroyed houses, debris
9. Local residents standing in front of destroyed house
10. Blown away boat
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Donna Cumiskey, local resident:
"A few reasons - one the business, we didn't want to leave it and not being able to come back and see it. We have animals. We were worried about breaking down on the way out with gas and being stuck in the car and we really didn't think it would hit like this to be honest. We didn't think it would be this bad. Won't stay again, that's for sure."
12. Blown away boats along road, vehicles passing by
13. Damaged electric line
14. Various of damaged vehicles

Scattered debris, shattered houses, uprooted poles – that’s how bad the devastation looks like in Florida Keys, four days after the deadly landfall of Hurricane Irma.

The Category 4 hurricane ripped through the low-lying strip of the islands and brought havoc.

Despite the mandatory evacuation orders, some residents chose to stay back.

"We were here. We owned a big house on the ocean which we thought was going to be safe cause it was three stories. The house basically caved in. We barely made it," said Larry Cumiskey, a local resident.

His family of six members lost two of their houses and source of livelihood.

"The business is gone. Like I said, we didn't think we were even going to live through it," Cumiskey added.

The wind gusts had no mercy with these mobile homes. Trailer parks have all been destroyed within a radius of 40 km.

When asked why the family did not evacuate, the wife Donna Cumiskey, said it didn't occur to them that the hurricane would be this bad.

"A few reasons - one the business, we didn't want to leave it and not being able to come back and see it. We have animals. We were worried about breaking down on the way out with gas and being stuck in the car and we really didn't think it would hit like this to be honest," she said.

Search and rescue operations are underway, with intermittent power connection.

Eight people died at a nursing home in the U.S. state of Florida for possible heat related reasons after its air conditioning system was knocked out by Hurricane Irma, authorities said Wednesday.

The victims, five women and three men, were aged between 71 and 99, while the causes of their deaths are yet to be determined, the release said.