A COUPLE have opened the doors to their American home as hurricane Irma hits the country.

Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow, formerly of Danbury, now live in Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The duo, who were one of the first gay couples in the UK to receive a civil partnership and the first couple to have children through surrogacy, opened their home up to neighbours and tourists ahead of the storm hitting.

So far more than 3.4 million homes are without power and parts of Miami are underwater.

The hurricane has been downgraded from category three to one but still has winds of up to 85mph.

Barrie and Tony posted across their social media channels extending their offer of help with the post viewed more than 70,000 times and shared more than 600 times.

In a video posted on Twitter and Facebook Barrie said: “Apparently this is going to be where the biggest part of the storm will hit.

“Right outside here we have got the water. We are right facing the bay, at the moment the water has gone right out and it is going to surge back in at some point or another. I have never seen the bay this low ever.

“There are lots of police going round making sure everyone is ok. What we are saying is if anybody gets stuck, or needs food or water, come over, we are more than happy to help you.

“We have already taken some local people in and a couple of tourists who couldn’t get anywhere, they had been evacuated out of there hotel and not been given anywhere to go.

“We need to make sure people are safe and the thing about our house is it is off the ground, we know we are going to get a surge of water but where we are is safe – it has never flooded since it was built in 1924 so we are hopeful it is still not going to flood again.”

Tony added: “Anybody in the Tempa bay area who doesn’t have anywhere to stay right now, the house is in zone A but the house is solid and we are right off the road. You are welcome to come over.”

Barrie added: “Don’t be lost or lonely – come over – we are here to help.”