CASTRIES, Saint Lucia (AFP) — The residents of Dominica have “lost all what money can buy and replace” after Hurricane Maria pounded the tiny Caribbean island, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said early Tuesday.
Maria, a monster Category Five storm with winds of 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour, made landfall on Dominica around 0115 GMT Tuesday.
The hurricane was traveling on a path along eastern Caribbean islands still reeling from Irma.
“Initial reports are of widespread devastation. So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace,” Skerrit said in a Facebook post, calling the damage “devastating… indeed, mind boggling.”
“The winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with. The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go.”
He appealed for “help of all kinds” but noted specifically that helicopters will be needed so that authorities can survey the damage.
Though there were no initial reports of casualties, Skerrit said his fear was that heavy rains will set off dangerous landslides.
The prime minister said authorities would set out in the morning, once it was deemed safe to venture out, to search for people who were injured or trapped in rubble.
Prior to the storm, Dominica residents flocked to supermarkets to stock up on essentials as island officials warned people living in low-lying areas or along rivers to move to high ground. All of the island’s shelters were opened.
The airport and ports were closed and the local water company shut down its systems to protect intake valves from debris churned up by the storm.
Islanders still remember the massive destruction and death caused by David, another Category Five hurricane that struck in 1979.
© Agence France-Presse
