Waiting for Jose: Caribbean braces for second potent storm

by Dramelin 5:30 AM 0 comments

Already battered and reeling from Hurricane Irma, isolated Caribbean islands lacking infrastructure, communications links, medical supplies and other essentials prepared to weather another potent hurricane Saturday as Jose bore down on the region.
Jose was headed toward the northern Leeward Islands that include Antigua and Barbuda, St.
Martin and the U.
and British Virgin Islands, with sustained winds of 150 mph — a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
This week, Irma already left a trail of flooded streets, toppled buildings, uprooted trees, upside-down boats and cars, and residents and visitors scrambling to secure shelter, food and clean water.
  Irma killed more than 20 people across the Caribbean.
Drone and helicopter footage show it has flattened homes, businesses, and lush tropical vegetation.
The National Hurricane Center said Irma made landfall in Cuba late Friday and projected it would slam into Florida, where there have been mass evacuations, Sunday morning.
   More: Hurricane Irma slams Cuba, takes aim at South Florida as Category 4 Hurricane Irma: Where is the Category 4 storm now and where is it headed? Ahead of Jose`s expected arrival later Saturday in Barbuda, Prime Minister Gaston Browne ordered the emergency evacuation of that island`s entire population, about 1,600 people, to neighboring Antigua, which was spared the brunt of Irma`s decimation.
An estimated 95% of all buildings in Barbuda have been destroyed.
Martin, an island dually governed by France and the Netherlands, Peter Jan de Vin, a Dutch military commander, tweeted a picture Saturday morning of marines dropping flyers from a helicopter warning beleaguered inhabitants that they need to find shelter before Jose`s potentially destructive winds descend on the island.
  A state of emergency was called in the British Virgin Islands, an archipelago of about 70 islands and small cays with 35,000 people, where the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency said four people were killed by Irma.
Because of the sheer devastation, information has been hard to come by.
The death toll may rise.
     A Facebook group calledBVI Abroad — Hurricane Irma was filled with posts urgently seeking information about missing friends and family members, images and video of the destruction, updates on the emergency response, and with pleas for the authorities and volunteers to get more help for those stranded in hard-to-reach areas.
  There was also anger and frustration at the perceived slow response by the British government — the BVI is an overseas British territory — which has pledged $42 million and 20 tons of aid to the Caribbean in the form of shelter kits, solar lanterns and other humanitarian relief supplies, but whose efforts have appeared to lack coordination.
"There`s lots of scary stories, people are looting, people are walking around with machetes because they`re trying to cut trees down," Laura Elliot, told the BBC.
She lives on the BVI`s largest island Tortola but was in Spain when Irma hit.
"The island is like a warzone.
There is nowhere to go.
There is nothing left there.
" More: Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia could all hit land this weekend More: Utility: Up to 9 million people could lose power during Hurricane Irma Read or Share this story: https://usat.