Barbuda finally catches a break
CABARET, HAITI» After the near-annihilation of tiny Barbuda by Hurricane Irma, its 1,700 evacuated residents took shelter on its sister island of Antigua, hunkering down in government buildings and residential homes as Hurricane Jose approached.
But the island nation caught a lucky break as Jose turned and missed both islands, Sir Ronald Sanders, ambassador to the United States from Antigua and Barbuda, said Saturday. Not that a hit on Barbuda could have done much more damage on the now-desolate island. Updated surveys had indicated that nearly 100 percent of its buildings had been damaged or destroyed, Sanders said.
“Jose would have only added to the debris,” he said.
“There’s no one there now. It’s like a scene from winter without snow. No grass. No trees. It is just rubble. We now have refugees from Barbuda in Antigua, and will have to sustain their lives for months, probably years, as we rebuild.”
The powerful tropical cyclone, which was barreling northwest toward the Caribbean islands already hammered by Irma, has weakened within the past 12 hours but remains a dangerous Category 4 storm, officials said. Jose’s maximum sustained wind speed was at 145 mph, and the storm was expected to pass north of the northern Leeward Islands later Saturday. That’s down by 10 mph from late Friday, when officials said the hurricane was just shy of a Category 5 storm.
Signs of Jose’s weakening came Saturday afternoon, when warnings were gradually lifted.
Alerts for Barbuda, Sint Maarten, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, also known as St. Barts, were downgraded from a hurricane storm warning to a tropical storm warning. The island of Anguilla was also under a tropical storm warning.
Still, Saint Maarten, a territory of the Kingdom of Netherlands, was left vulnerable after Irma damaged or destroyed 70 percent of the homes there, Dutch officials said.
Sanders said his country would reach out for international aid for a reconstruction effort that could take years and cost $150 million or more.
W