As Hurricane Irma Rages, Woman Delivers Own Baby

Miami is getting hit with such strong winds from Hurricane Irma that fire and rescue crews are having to choose which calls are safe enough to respond to, and that left one local woman on her own when it came time to deliver her baby. The Miami Herald reports that a woman in Little Haiti went into labor early Sunday morning, but due to severe weather conditions, paramedics were unable to get to her. So doctors from the Jackson Health System talked the woman through the delivery process over the phone, even telling her how to handle the placenta. “Dispatch told her how to tie [the placenta] off,” Assistant Fire Chief Eloy Garcia says. The woman and her newborn baby girl were eventually taken to the hospital by firefighters, CBS DFW reports.

Hurricane Irma may be making landfall in the Florida Keys and on the state's western coast, but that doesn't mean things have been easy in Miami. Forecasters predict the city could see storm surges of up to six feet. Last night emergency workers got a call about an 18-story building whose sea wall had been washed away. “It washed out a sea wall completely. I’ve never seen that here,” Miami Emergency Management Director Pete Gomez says. “It’s indicative of the damage the surges can cause.” (More Miami stories.)