Outer bands of the unusually powerful Hurricane Irma battered parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday morning, threatening serious flooding a day after leaving severe destruction and at least nine dead across a string of Caribbean islands to the east.
Irma -- a Category 5 storm that has kept sustained winds of 180 mph longer than any other on record -- knocked out electricity a day earlier to more than 1 million customers in Puerto Rico as it churned off the US territory, and devastated smaller islands, including Barbuda and the British Virgin Islands.
