Hurricane Irma makes landfall on Caribbean island
ST. JOHN’S (AFP) — Monster Hurricane Irma slammed into the island of Barbuda yesterday as it barreled its way across the Caribbean, packing ferocious winds and potential for towering coastal surges.
The eye of the rare Category Five storm made landfall on Barbuda — part of the twin island nation of Antigua and Barbuda — just before 0600 GMT with winds gusting at up to 295 kilometers per hour, the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said.
The storm is headed northwest toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, with potential for storm surges of up to 20 feet above normal tide levels, it added.
The NHC said on Tuesday that while Irma was in the Atlantic headed for the Caribbean it was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in that ocean.
Ahead of the storm, which comes on the heels of the devastating Hurricane Harvey late last month in Texas, people packed shelters, stocked up on provisions and evacuated tourist areas as far north as Florida. The storm is expected to last for days.
The NHC said in a bulletin at 0600 GMT that the eye of Irma was passing over Barbuda.
As people hunkered down in the north of the Caribbean arc known as the Leeward Islands, the NHC said Irma was a potentially catastrophic storm.
“I am just praying to God. Everything happens for a reason,” an Antigua woman who gave her name as Kazia said as she endured strong winds in a town called Sea View Farm. This was hours before the eye passed over.
Davina, a woman in the town of Yorks on the same island, said: “I can hear very strong winds and things being thrown around, but I am scared to look outside.”
Power was turned off across Antigua as a safety precaution because power lines are above ground. Families packed shelters. One after another, scared people sitting in the dark called in to radio stations.
The core of the hurricane was expected to move over other parts of the northern Leeward Islands early yesterday, the NHC said.
It will then head northwest toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico later today.
Category Five is the highest on the scale for hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean.