As if Hurricanes Harvey and Irma weren’t destructive enough, there’s now a new one. Maria is now a Cat 5, bearing down on the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and then Puerto Rico.
It intensified so fast. This morning a Cat 1, this evening a Cat 5.
Holy cow!
We have relatives who have a condo in the USVI. It was severely damaged from the last hurricane. Can’t imagine what will happen now, with the island so dessimated. The well known sand floor synagogue was in pretty good shape after Irma. Not sure what will happen now…
Gosh. So sad these poor people have to go through this again.
And this is just the mid-September. 
I can’t imagine how the folks on these islands feel now. It’s been one storm after the next…with damage.
And most of these islands also rely on tourism economically. This year is going to be devastating to their economies.
This is unimaginable
Maria has made landfall on the island of Domenica as a category 5 hurricane. Domenica is not known for vast, sandy beaches, it is known as the Garden Island. So sad, it will likely be scoured of all greenery by this storm. =((
I am very emotionally upset about this. I have many friends in the British Virgin Islands. They have had only 3 days of possible evacuations and over 50% of residents are under flimsy tarps at this point. Massive amounts of debris everywhere that is just going to become flying dangerous projectiles in this next storm.
Even worse, they are experiencing a swarm of mosquitoes after Irma and, because no electricity and no windows, there are going to be serious health concerns. Rats are also taking over because there is food and dead animals strewn everywhere and no way to totally secure homes when walls or doors missing.
Govt is scrambling to try to haul as much debris as possible before Maria hits but they don’t have the equipment the US has. Every resident is out with machetes, ice picks, whatever they can find, to hack roads open so trucks can get through to haul debris
This is a humanitarian catastrophe. And it was one that was a hell of a lot more avoidable than, say, an earthquake.
BBC alert: PM of Dominica says “We have lost all that money can buy.”
That is just horrible…they are such a beautiful small country
Last night one of his tweets said, “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Thankfully he was rescued shortly thereafter.
When even your highest government official can’t find safe shelter from the storm you have to know it’s causing horrible devastation. I feel like I’m saying this once a week at this point, but my thought are with everyone in the path of this beast.
New forecast models are making it more likely to go out to sea after going thru islands which is good for southeast US. Not much help to poor islands in its’ path though. Hurricane season needs to end.
National Hurricane Center is saying Hurricane Jose is preventing Maria from traveling further west sparing the US east coast.
Unfortunately the models all still have Maria making a direct hit Puerto Rico, a part of our country.
Major, major flooding going on currently in the USVI.
those poor islands!!!
News reporting that the ENTIRE island of Puerto Rico is without power. 3.5 million people.
Oh. My…