The Hurricane Warning has been changed to a Tropical Storm Warning along the Florida west coast south of Anclote River to Bonita Beach, along the Florida east coast south of Sebastian Inlet to Jupiter Inlet, and for Lake Okeechobee, the National Hurricane Center, external says.

The Tropical Storm Warnings are discontinued for the Florida Keys, Florida Bay, the Florida east coast south of Jupiter Inlet, the Florida west coast south of Bonita Beach, and for the Northwestern Bahamas.

The Storm Surge Warning is discontinued for the Florida Keys and the Florida coast from North Miami Beach southward around the Florida peninsula to Cape Sable.

Elsewhere a Storm Surge Warning is in effect for:

1. South Santee River southward to Jupiter Inlet
2. Cape Sable northward to the Ochlockonee River
3. Tampa Bay

A Hurricane Warning is in effect for:

1. Sebastian Inlet to Fernandina Beach
2. Anclote River to Indian Pass

A Hurricane Watch is in effect for:

1. North of Fernandina Beach to Edisto Beach

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for:

1. West of Indian Pass to the Okaloosa/Walton County Line
2. North of Fernandina Beach to South Santee River
3. South of Anclote River to Bonita Beach
4. South of Sebastian Inlet to Jupiter Inlet
5. Lake Okeechobee

Hurricane Irma has been downgraded from a category three to one storm, but Florida's governor, Rick Scott, has warned there will still be "life-threatening wind" through much of the state.

Maximum sustained winds of 85mph (137km/h) have been forecast for the area.

At least four deaths have been connected to the storm:

• A police officer working at a hurricane shelter in Hardee County was killed driving home when she collided with another vehicle being driven by a fellow officer, who also died
• A person died in a single-car crash in Orange County
• A man died in Marathon, Monroe County, on Saturday when his truck hit a tree, the sheriff's office said, adding that it was unknown if the crash had been weather-related or not

Bronek Masojada, chief executive of Hiscox Insurance group, tells the BBC that the impact of Irma and Harvey cumulatively means that the cost is likely to exceed the damage caused by Katrina in 2005.

Katrina devastated New Orleans and is widely regarded as the most expensive insured loss event in the history of insurance anywhere in the world, costing about £200bn.

Mr Masojada says that in recent years there has been a "big variability" in the number of hurricanes, which are often "more intense".

"We do not sell insurance for a decade but for a year, and we can adjust as new information and new science become apparent."

Mr Masojada says that in Florida building codes are especially important because they tell insurers when a home or building was constructed, giving a better idea as to the probability of it being hit by a hurricane.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Boris Johnson has defended the UK's response to Hurricane Irma in the British Virgin Islands, following criticisms it was "found wanting" and was slower than France and the Netherlands.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it wouldn't have made sense to send heavy aircraft or ships while Hurricane Irma was impeding because they would not have been capable of withstanding the storm.

He also said authorities in the BVI said there had been an “immense psychological benefit” as a result of the UK sending military personnel to help with the relief effort.

"I think that actually we have responded in a timely and highly organised fashion... We will be there for the long term," he said.

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz tells the BBC that the state will require the most expensive programme in US history to recover from the hurricane.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "This is the most significant storm that has hit the United States in modern times. What is very serious about it is that it is hitting virtually the entire state, multiple major metropolitan areas, and we are going to have a recovery the likes to which we have not seen in the United States."

Ms Wasserman Schultz said that half a million people were without power in the two areas she represents. She said that Congress - which recently approved a $15bn aid package for the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas - would now have to get to work on an even bigger amount for Florida, "because this recovery is going to be the most expensive in history".

The middle and upper parts of Florida Keys - on the more savage right side of Irma’s 130mph winds - appeared to have been hit by far more severe storm damage, The Miami Herald says., external

In Monroe County, emergency managers hinted that there could be fatalities, the paper reported, with one official describing the destruction as a looming “humanitarian crisis”.

Hurricane Irma has triggered a debate over TV Storm reporting, The New York Times says, external, with reporters "putting themselves in conditions that they were advising residents to stay out of". Using a picture (above) of Meteorologist Mike Seidel of the Weather Channel braving fierce winds and flooded streets in Miami, the paper says that many television journalists are putting themselves in potentially unsafe conditions while covering the hurricane. The paper also cites the case of one MSNBC correspondent in a Miami boulevard who pointed to a large tree that had fallen across the street, as other trees folded in the wind alongside her. "It raised the question of whether her team was in danger," the paper says.

Image source, EPA

Hundreds of British tourists in Varadero, Cuba, are relieved to have escaped the storm but are, nevertheless, irritated that unlike other countries, the British government and tour companies were slow to arrange evacuations and effectively abandoned them. A BBC correspondent in Varadero says that the resort town has escaped the full force of the hurricane's destruction which took place further east.

Image source, Reuters

Fake news and viral hoaxes are "inevitable ahead of a natural disaster", The Washington Post says, external, and it is "very easy to make a shareable, but fictional post go massively viral".

The newspaper has compiled a list of such hoaxes, including a video tweeted by the White House’s director of social media which wrongly purports to be shot at Miami airport. Airport staff in a tweet , externalinformed the director he was wrong.

This BBC graphic illustrates the correlation between wind speeds and damage caused by a hurricane.