Report: Hurricane Irma damage considerable http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41172726 Barbuda “Totally Demolished” After Hurricane Irma Levels 90% Of All DwellingsSteve Watson | Infowars.com - September 7, 2017
Zero Hedge
Sept 7, 2017
Having mauled the Caribbean island of St. Martin overnight, where this morning the French government said that the four “most solid” buildings have been destroyed, Hurricane Irma – now at 185mps for a record 33 straight hours – has just passed north of Puerto Rico, buffeting the US island territory’s capital, San Juan, with heavy downpours and strong winds that scattered tree limbs across roadways, but not before “totally demolishing” the island of Barbuda, with 90% of all dwellings leveled, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.
Images show Irma damage in Barbuda; officials say destruction could be "upwards of 90%"
https://t.co/5WpCIuCk4d https://t.co/GBjTj9ZeXz — CNN (@CNN) September 6, 2017
Browne said that Irma has unleashed “absolute devastation” on the island making Barbuda, home to some 1,800 people, “basically uninhabitable” with preliminary damage estimated at some $150 million.
Antigua & Barbuda's Prime Minister: "The way it stands now, #Barbuda is basically uninhabitable."
Photos: ABS Television/Radio. pic.twitter.com/SxJDknTvy3
— TTWeatherCenter (@TTWeatherCenter) September 6, 2017
He said that the island’s communication network is 100% destroyed.
First images out of Barbuda from a Facebook broadcast live by ABS Radio & TV.
Widespread destruction has occurred on the island. pic.twitter.com/0MGShjxuU8
— TTWeatherCenter (@TTWeatherCenter) September 6, 2017
Antigua & Barbuda's PM Browne: "#Barbuda's communication network is 100% destroyed"
Photo: ABS Television/Radio pic.twitter.com/FXlYRaP08t
— TTWeatherCenter (@TTWeatherCenter) September 6, 2017
Unbelievable. #Irma has snapped all the cell towers on #Barbuda. That's reinforced steel – photo: ABS pic.twitter.com/NF5v698XJa
— Jonny Hallam (@Jonny_Hallam) September 6, 2017
A before and after photo confirms the devastation:
Jost Van Dyke #BVI
Before and after #Irma pic.twitter.com/HExX6TFhb9
— John Morales (@JohnMoralesNBC6) September 6, 2017
“This rebuilding initiative will take years,” Browne told local television after a visit to the island, where he confirmed at least one person had died due to the storm. A second storm-related fatality, that of a surfer, was reported on Barbados and the French government said at least two people were killed in Caribbean island territories of St. Martin and Saint Barthelemy.
Irma, with top sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (300 km per hour), was on track to reach Florida on Saturday or Sunday, becoming the second major hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in as many weeks.
While Irma’s intensity could fluctuate, and its precise course remained uncertain, the storm was expected to remain at least a Category 4 before arriving in Florida.
Irma is not alone, and as reported earlier, two other hurricanes formed on Wednesday. While Katia, in the Gulf of Mexico, poses no threat to the U.S. Hurricane Jose in the open Atlantic, about 1,000 miles (1,610 km) east of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles islands, could also eventually threaten the U.S. mainland, a third hurricane landfall on the U.S. in under a month.
According to Reuters, Florida emergency management officials, chastened by Harvey’s devastation, began evacuations days in advance of Irma’s arrival, ordering all tourists to leave the Florida Keys, a resort archipelago off the state’s southern tip, starting Wednesday morning. Evacuation of residents from the Keys was to begin Wednesday evening.
Ed Rappaport, acting National Hurricane Center director, interviewed on Miami television station WFOR-TV, called Irma a “once-in-a-generation storm,” adding that for Florida, “It’s the big one for us.”
Chuck Watson, disaster modeler with Enki Research, said in a note that “Irma is the kind of storm where you get thousands of lives lost. This is not going to be the big slow-motion flood like Harvey – this is a real, honest-to-God hurricane.”
Late on Wednesday, the eye of Irma passed just north of Puerto Rico.
You can use of #radar spectrum width to show dev. of #Irma's secondary #eyewall b/c it depicts areas of strong boundary layer turbulence. pic.twitter.com/FwlKnEQshK
— Philippe Papin (@pppapin) September 6, 2017
“The winds that we are experiencing right now are like nothing we have experienced before,” Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello told CNN. “We expect a lot of damage, perhaps not as much as was seen in Barbuda.”
At least half of Puerto Rico’s homes and businesses lost electricity by nightfall, according to a Twitter message posted by an island utility executive. According to the Miami Herald, Puerto Rico residents could be left without power for four to six months after Hurricane Irma grazes the island.
“There are going to be blackouts. Areas that will spend three, four months without electricity,” Ricardo Ramos, executive director of Puerto Rico’s energy agency, said, according to the Spanish-language news agency EFE.
On its current path the core of Irma, which the Miami-based center said marked the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, was expected to scrape the northern coast of the Dominican Republic on Thursday. It was on a track that would put it near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas by Thursday evening.
Trump, whose waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, could take a direct hit from the storm, has already approved emergency declarations for Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts. He spoke with governors of all three by telephone on Wednesday, the White House said.
Florida Governor Rick Scott said Irma could be more devastating than Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that struck the state in 1992 and still ranks as one of the costliest ever in the United States.
Residents in most coastal communities of densely populated Miami-Dade County were ordered to move to higher ground beginning at 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT) on Thursday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced on Wednesday. The evacuation orders will affect more than 100,000 residents, the Miami Herald reported. Miami-Dade has a population of 2.7 million.
#Hurricane watches could be issued for portions of the Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula on Thursday.
https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb #Irma pic.twitter.com/j9KhJVOJHY
— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) September 7, 2017
Scott told a news conference in the Keys that 7,000 National Guard troops would report for duty on Friday, ahead of the storm’s expected arrival. Statewide emergency declarations were issued in both North and South Carolina, and Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency for six coastal counties in anticipation of Irma’s arrival.
Hurricane Irma has destroyed the Princess Juliana International Airport as it barreled through St. Martin. https://youtu.be/dA5qYrboTUE Hurricane Irma AFTERMATH!! (Anguilla/St.Maarten/St.Martin) https://youtu.be/M-WDrsX-OTc Hurricane IRMA DESTROYING St Maarten,St Martin Horrific WINDS Speeds 180 mph to 200 Mph https://youtu.be/aQ99NFwYHws Barbuda - Survivors tell Irma Story https://youtu.be/l-2KhmOCtvg Hurricane Irma toll hits 10, increasing threat for Florida By DANICA COTO and ANIKA KENTISH
https://apnews.co/77a9a82f58d04bdbb122832b297b199d SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Fearsome Hurricane Irma cut a path of devastation across the northern Caribbean, leaving at least 10 dead and thousands homeless after destroying buildings and uprooting trees on a track Thursday that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida. The most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever, Irma weakened only slightly Thursday morning and remained a powerful Category 5 storm with winds of 180 mph (285 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The storm was increasingly likely to rip into heavily populated South Florida early Sunday, prompting the governor to declare an emergency and officials to impose mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the Miami metro area and the Florida Keys. Forecasters said it could punish the entire Atlantic coast of Florida and rage on into Georgia and South Carolina.
“This could easily be the most costly storm in U.S. history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, alluding to the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told France Info radio that eight had died and 23 injured in the country’s Caribbean island territories, and he said the toll on Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy could be higher because rescue teams have yet to finish their inspection of the islands.
“The reconnaissance will really start at daybreak,” Collomb said.
At a news conference, Collomb also said 100,000 food rations have been sent to the islands, the equivalent of four days of supplies.
“It’s a tragedy, we’ll need to rebuild both islands,” he said. “Most of the schools have been destroyed.”
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he will go to the islands has soon as weather conditions permit. Macron said France is “grief-stricken” by the devastation caused by Irma and called for concerted efforts to tackle global warming and climate change to prevent similar future natural disasters.
In the United Kingdom, the government said Irma inflicted “severe and in places critical” damage to the British overseas territory of Anguilla. Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said the Caribbean island took the full force of the hurricane. He told lawmakers on Thursday that the British Virgin islands have also suffered “severe damage.”
Irma blacked out much of Puerto Rico, raking the U.S. territory with heavy wind and rain while staying just out to sea, and it headed early Thursday toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm’s record 185 mph (298 kph) winds. Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma, and information on damage trickled out.
Nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday and about 60 percent of its roughly 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.
“It is just really a horrendous situation,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island.
He said roads and telecommunications systems were wrecked and recovery would take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.
One death also was reported in the nearby island of Anguilla, where officials reported extensive damage to the airport, hospitals, shelters and school and said 90 percent of roads are impassible, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.
The agency also reported “major damage” to houses and commercial buildings in the British Virgin Islands.
On St. Thomas in the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands, Laura Strickling spent 12 hours hunkered down with her husband and 1-year-old daughter in a boarded-up basement apartment with no power as the storm raged outside. They emerged to find the lush island in tatters. Many of their neighbors’ homes were damaged and once-dense vegetation was largely gone.
“There are no leaves. It is crazy. One of the things we loved about St. Thomas is that it was so green. And it’s gone,” Strickling said. “It will take years for this community to get back on its feet.”
Significant damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. Photos and video circulating on social media showed major damage to the airport in Philipsburg and the coastal village of Marigot heavily flooded. France sent emergency food and water there and to the French island of St. Bart’s, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out electricity.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday the storm “caused widescale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.”
“There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark, in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world,” he said.
By Thursday morning, the center of the storm was about 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and was moving west-northwest near 17 mph (28 kph).
More than half the island of Puerto Rico was without power, leaving 900,000 in the dark and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory’s emergency management agency said in the midst of the storm. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.
Puerto Rico’s public power company warned before the storm hit that some areas could be left without power from four to six months because its staff has been reduced and its infrastructure weakened by the island’s decade-long economic slump.
President Donald Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies to remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government.
