Caribbean braces for yet another hurricane
Maria trains sights on islands spared the worst of Irma’s wrath
Oh, no — not again. This is the general sentiment across a broad area of the eastern Caribbean as residents, some still sifting through the wreckage left by Hurricane Irma, brace for the impact of yet another powerful storm stalking them in the Atlantic Ocean.
Hurricane Maria was yesterday rumbling toward the Lesser Antilles, the crescent of islands that curves from the Virgin Islands to Grenada, and forecasters predicted that the storm would continue to grow as it ploughed west-northwest through the Caribbean. It may reach major hurricane status by midweek as it approaches Puerto Rico and the British and US Virgin Islands.
“I don’t think that anybody is emotionally prepared for it,” said Cruselda Roberts, a real estate agent in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were hammered by Hurricane Irma. “But we’ll do our best.”
The new storm comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful cyclones ever recorded, made landfall in Antigua and Barbuda before sweeping through the Caribbean and Florida, killing dozens of people, destroying entire neighbourhoods and leaving thousands homeless. Another Atlantic storm, Hurricane Jose, threatened the region in the wake of Irma, but ended up skirting the Lesser Antilles before turning north.
On Sunday afternoon, Hurricane Maria had maximum sustained winds of 120kph and was heading west-northwest yesterday at 25kph on a trajectory that was farther south than Hurricane Irma’s.
Forecasters said the storm’s likely trajectory early in the week would take it across or near islands that were largely spared the impact of Irma, including Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Montserrat and St Kitts and Nevis.
Still, hurricane watches remained in effect for several of the islands farther north that were battered by Irma, including St Martin, St Barthelemy and Anguilla, which are still trying to assess the extent of the damage they suffered, grapple with their losses and imagine a path toward recovery.
Even if the storm remains mostly to the south of those beaten-up islands, its outer bands of wind and rain could halt recovery efforts, inflict further damage to broken buildings and cause flash floods and mudslides.
“Everybody’s upset with that,” said Christophe Louis, a businessman in Guadeloupe with investments in St Martin.
Louis, a partner in a rum bottling and distribution firm in St Martin, said the company’s warehouse had been damaged by Irma, and then looted. And now the island is bracing for more punishment. “Everybody’s so tired,” he said. Throughout the region Sunday, residents prepared for the latest storm’s arrival, boarding up windows and loading up on provisions. Officials opened storm shelters and publicised emergency contact numbers.
On islands that were threatened by Hurricane Irma but not hard hit, some found they did not have much work to do. Windows were still boarded up, and emergency stockpiles of food, water and supplies, gathered in advance of the earlier storm, were untouched.
“This hurricane season has been very, very frightening,” said Jenny Gordon, a member of the wait staff at the Pagua Bay House, a hotel in Dominica. “There’s been one hurricane after another, so we never stopped preparing.”
Forecasters said late on Sunday that Hurricane Maria could attain Category 2 status, with winds up to 180kph, by the time it breaches the Antilles chain this morning, and that it could threaten Puerto Rico later in the week “as a dangerous major hurricane” with winds up to 200kph.
Irma left more than 70% of households in Puerto Rico without power, but otherwise spared the island the worst of its fury. The island may not be so lucky this time, officials warned.
“This has the potential of being a very big disaster,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said.
Electricity has been restored to 96% of households and businesses since Hurricane Irma, but Mr Rossello said there was little time to prepare a vulnerable power grid for another storm.
Government officials in the US Virgin Islands, which is still reeling from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma, warned residents not to remain in their damaged homes but instead to seek refuge in a government shelter.
Hurricane Irma knocked out the basic infrastructure on the islands of St Thomas and St John, leaving thousands of residents without electricity, water and telephone communication.
St Croix was mostly unscathed by the storm, but officials said the island could take a direct hit from Hurricane Maria today.
“I’m not trying to alarm folks, I’m not trying to scare folks,” Governor Kenneth Mapp said. “I know the anxiety is high.”