Virgin Islands ready for Maria onslaught

HURRICANE Maria, the second major storm to hit the Caribbean this month, moved toward the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico yesterday after it ripped through the small island nation of Dominica, causing widespread devastation.

Hurricane Maria regained Category 5 strength as it churned about 325km southeast of St Croix in the Virgin Islands, with maximum sustained winds of 260km/h, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said early yesterday.

The storm ploughed through Dominica, an island nation of 72 000 people in the eastern Caribbean, late on Monday, causing widespread devastation, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a Facebook post.

“I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating . . . indeed, mind-boggling. My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured,” he said.

The storm slammed into the island as a Category 5 hurricane, the NHC said.

“The winds have swept away the roofs [of the homes]of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with,” Skerrit said. “The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go.”

While the intensity of the hurricane may fluctuate over the next day or two, Maria was expected to remain a Category 4 or 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based NHC said.

The storm was on track to move over the northeastern Caribbean Sea and, by last night or early yesterday, approach the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, where millions are still reeling from Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

If Maria retained its strength, it would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years, an NHC spokesman said.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello told island residents on Twitter: “It is time to seek refuge with a family member or friend, or head to a state shelter.”

Puerto Rico narrowly avoided a direct hit two weeks ago from Category 5 Hurricane Irma.

US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp said Maria was due to pass within 16km of the island of St Croix, which escaped the brunt of Irma’s clout. The island is home to about 55 000 residents. At an evening news conference, he predicted most islanders would be without electricity for weeks, and some for months. A curfew was imposed.

Mapp asked the public for prayers and urged St Croix residents to take cover in one of three emergency shelters on the island.

Those choosing to stay in their homes should consider climbing into a second-floor bathtub and pulling a mattress over them to stay safe in the event they lost their roofs, he said.

Maria was expected to whip up storm surges of up to nearly 3m above normal tide levels, the NHC said.

Puerto Rico, with about 3.4 million inhabitants, opened shelters and began to dismantle cranes that could be vulnerable to Maria’s winds, as residents rushed to buy supplies.

It is time to seek refuge with a family member or friend, or [at a] shelter