‘Bigger, faster, stronger’ hurricane Irma lashes at Puerto Rico
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Hurricane Irma lashed Puerto Rico with heavy rain and powerful winds, leaving more than 600,000 people without power as authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands already devastated by the historic storm.
Florida rushed to prepare for a possible direct hit on the Miami area by the Category 5 storm with potentially catastrophic 295 km/h winds.
Nearly every building on the island of Barbuda was damaged when the eye of the storm passed almost directly overhead early Wednesday and about 60 per cent of the island’s roughly 1,400 people were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.
“Either they were totally demolished or they would have lost their roof,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighbouring island. “It is just really a horrendous situation.”
He said roads and telecommunications systems were destroyed and recovery will take months, if not years. A two-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.
Serious damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. France sent emergency food and water rations there and to the French island of St. Bart’s, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out all electricity. Dutch marines who flew to St. Martin and two other Dutch islands hammered by Irma reported extensive damage but no deaths or injuries.
By early Wednesday evening, the centre of the storm was 65 kilometres northwest of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and 90 kilometres northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and heading west-northwest at 26 km/h.
More than 600,000 Puerto Ricans were without power and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads. The tiny island of Culebra reported sustained winds of 140 km/h and wind gusts of 175 km/h.
The U.S. National Weather Service said Puerto Rico had not seen a hurricane of Irma’s magnitude since Hurricane San Felipe in 1928, which killed a total of 2,748 people in Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and Florida. Puerto Rico’s public power company has cut back on staff and maintenance amid a decade-long economic crisis and the agency’s director warned that some areas could be without power from four to six months because the infrastructure has already deteriorated so badly.
President Donald Trump this week approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. That means the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies can remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government. EPA officials said their biggest concerns were oil spills and power disruptions to water supply systems.
“No matter what precautions we take, the coastal flooding will impact oil tanks,” said Catherine McCabe, a regional administrator.
Another concern was the 20 Superfund sites in Puerto Rico and the three in the U.S. Virgin Islands, given that most were near the coast, she said. She said EPA officials in New Jersey were on standby to fly down after the hurricane passed through.
State maintenance worker Juan Tosado said he was without power for three months after Hurricane Hugo killed dozens of people in Puerto Rico in 1989.
“I expect the same from this storm,” he said. “It’s going to be bad.”
Tourist Pauline Jackson, a 59-year-old registered nurse from Tampa, Florida, puffed on her last cigarette as a San Juan hotel prepared to shutter its doors ahead of the storm.
“I’m in a hurricane here, and when I get home, I’ll be in the same hurricane. It’s crazy,” she said.
She tried to leave ahead of the storm but all flights were sold out, and she worried about her home in Tampa. “When you’re from Florida, you understand a Category 5 hurricane,” said Jackson, who was scheduled to fly out Friday.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Irma’s winds would fluctuate, but the storm would likely remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as it roared past the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas. By early Sunday, Irma is expected to hit Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott said he planned to activate 7,000 National Guard soldiers by Friday and warned Irma is “bigger, faster and stronger” than Hurricane Andrew. Andrew hit South Florida 25 years ago and wiped out entire neighbourhoods.