This is an overview of Hurricane Irma, reported by journalists throughout the region. To see their latest dispatches from places hit by the storm, go to Thursday's live Irma updates.

SAN JUAN, P.R. — Hurricane Irma struck the northeast Caribbean with terrifying force Wednesday, its battering rain and winds of up to 185 miles per hour leaving a trail of chaos, wreckage and flooding from Barbuda to Puerto Rico, before taking aim at islands farther west and, beyond them, Florida.

Already one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, Irma could become one of the most destructive as well, depending on its path, and officials from Turks and Caicos to Florida pleaded with people to heed advisories to evacuate to shelters and higher ground. The National Hurricane Center described the hurricane as “potentially catastrophic.”

The storm made direct hits on Barbuda, St. Barthélemy, St. Martin, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, and raked the United States Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico with hurricane-force wind and torrential rain. Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said Irma had destroyed 95 percent of the structures on Barbuda, an island with about 1,600 people.