Hurricane Irma ripped through the Caribbean today, leaving a trail of devastation and killing 19 as it barrelled towards the United States where up to a million people have been told to flee. <br/><br/>So far, 1.2 million people have been affected by Irma, the Red Cross said. But that number looks set to rise — and could reach as high as 26 million. With the monster storm expected to reach the American south by the weekend, coastal areas of Florida and Georgia were battening down the hatches and carrying out their biggest evacuation since 2005.<br/><br/>Roaring across the Caribbean, the rare Category Five hurricane laid waste to a series of tiny islands like St Martin, where 60 percent of homes were wrecked, before slamming into the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) had downgraded Irma to Category Four with maximum wind speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour while warning it was still extremely dangerous. As of early today, the eye of the storm was just north of Great Inagua, at the southern tip of the Bahamas.<br/><br/>The NHC said the worst of the storm is expected to hit Florida Keys and the southern Florida Peninsula on Sunday, with forecasters warning of storm surges of up to 25 feet above normal tide levels. <br/><br/>As Irma cut through the Caribbean, two other storms in the region were upgraded to hurricane status: Jose in the Atlantic Ocean and Katia in the Gulf of Mexico. Katia is expected to hit the coast of the Mexico today, while Jose — a Category Three storm — is following Irma's path. Still reeling from Irma, many islanders were bracing for the next storm, with Jose bearing down hard.