Deadly Irma packs mean punchline
BILLIONS TO BE PAID OUT FOR DAMAGE Hurricane rips through Caribbean leaving trail of devastation and killing 12.
Damage caused by Hurricane Irma on French islands in the Caribbean is estimated to be “much higher” than €200 million (R3 billion), a state insurance group said yesterday.
Bertrand Labilloy, head of the Caisse Centrale de Réassurance (CCR), which specialises in natural disasters, said hurricanes typically caused about €100-€200 million worth of damage on the French islands.
“But Irma is much more powerful, so you should expect the figure to be much higher than this.”
Hurricane Irma ripped through the Caribbean yesterday, with its violent winds and torrential rains leaving a trail of devastation and killing 12 as it barrelled towards the US, where up to a million people were told to flee.
With the monster storm expected to reach the American south by the weekend, coastal areas of Florida and Georgia were carrying out the biggest evacuation since 2005.
“The entire southeastern United States better wake up and pay attention,” warned US federal emergency chief Brock Long. “It will be truly devastating.” Racing across the Caribbean, the rare category five storm laid waste to a series of tiny islands like St Martin, where 60% of homes were wrecked, before slamming the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Irma packed winds of up to 295km/h, an intensity it sustained for 33 hours. – AFP