Hurricane Maria batters Dominica
SAN JUAN (AP) — Hurricane Maria intensified into a dangerous Category 5 storm and pounded the small island of Dominica as it surged into the eastern Caribbean on Monday night, and forecasters warned it might become even stronger.
The storm was following a path that could take it near many of the islands recently devastated by Hurricane Irma and then head toward a possible direct strike on Puerto Rico today.
Fierce winds and driving rain lashed the mountainous island for hours, causing flooding and tearing roofs from homes.
A series of Facebook posts by Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit captured the fury of the storm as it made landfall.
“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” Skerrit wrote at the start of a series of increasingly harrowing posts.
A few minutes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanized steel roofs tearing off houses on the small rugged island.
He then wrote that he thought his home had been damaged. And three words: “Rough! Rough! Rough!”
A half hour later, he said: “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Seven minutes later he posted that he had been rescued.
Late Monday, police officer Pellam Jno Baptiste said there were no immediate reports of casualties, but it was still too dangerous for officers to do a full assessment as the storm raged outside.
“Where we are, we can’t move,” he said in a brief phone interview.
Dominica authorities had closed schools and government offices and urged people to move from dangerous areas to shelters.
“We should treat the approaching hurricane very, very seriously,” the prime minister warned as the storm approached. “This much water in Dominica is dangerous.”
In August 2015, Tropical Storm Erika unleashed flooding and landslides that killed 31 people and destroyed more than 370 homes on the small, mountainous island.
Officials in nearby Guadeloupe said the French island would experience extremely heavy flooding and warned that many communities could be submerged overnight.
In Martinique, authorities ordered people to remain indoors and said they should prepare for cuts to power and water. Schools and nonessential public services were closed.
With Puerto Rico appear- ing destined for a hit, officials in the US territory warned residents of wooden or otherwise flimsy homes to find safe shelter.
“You have to evacuate. Otherwise you’re going to die,” said Hector Pesquera, the island’s public safety commissioner. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer.”
The US National Hurricane Center said Maria had maximum sustained winds of 260 kilometers per hour late Monday. The eye was atop Dominica and about 435 kilometers southeast of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. It heading west-northwest at 15 kilometers per hour.
Earlier in the day, the center had warned: “Maria is developing the dreaded pinhole eye.”
“That’s a sign of an extremely strong hurricane likely to get even mightier,” said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.