Irma death toll in St Maarten climbs to four: Dutch PM

The billionaire businessman was pictured in front of torn-down buildings and uprooted trees.

While it will take much of Cuba’s tourism industry weeks, if not months to recover from the hurricane, guests at the Barcelo said they would not be deterred from returning to the Caribbean’s largest island. Many residents had left town before the storm hit and all foreigners were urged to evacuate. He’s with us now from Havana.

– U.S. Transportation Command will lift the 602nd Area Medical Support Company to St. Thomas with primary and emergency patient care capability.

So far there have been no reports of deaths in Cuba.

The storm’s destruction was even worse on the islands to the west of Barbuda, where at least 11 people were killed on St. Martin, a small island jointly controlled by France and the Netherlands.

If history is a guide, many islands in Irma’s path can expect to encounter similar hardships.

Rivers said her vehicle was broken into with a hammer, items were stolen from the flattened sushi restaurant where she worked, and she saw fights break out in St. Thomas among increasingly desperate people jostling for food and water.

Irma passed the north east Caribbean Islands on September 6 with maximum sustained winds of 185mph (295kph).

Satellites operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration kept an eye on the storm overnight as it moved from Cuba to Florida, including the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite and GOES weather satellites. When Irma hit the island on Wednesday, it had reached a Category 5 storm. Prime Minister Gaston Browne described the result as “total devastation”. Many Barbuda have been evacuated ahead of Jose.

Hurricane Irma struck a patchwork of independent island nations and territories in various forms of association with France, the Netherlands, the U.S. and the United Kingdom and killed at least 38 people in the Caribbean. French President Emmanuel Macron will leave Monday night for St. Martin and spend Tuesday surveying the damage.

The islands’ woes increased as the airport on St. Barts was closed, and those in Anguilla and St. Martin were open only to the military, rescue crews and aid organizations.

Evacuees arriving in the United States from St. Martin spoke of their horror as the hurricane passed overhead and the hard cleanup that has followed.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk on Monday visited St. Martin, reviewing the damage done to the battered island with local leaders. The estimate includes damages to homes, vehicles and businesses – including operating losses – which are covered by the natural disaster compensation scheme, CCR said Saturday.

“We struggle to respond to tragedies in our own country, let alone those Britain has a responsibility for 2,500 miles away”, he said. The island is home to about 72,000 people.

The premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, also appealed for urgent aid from Britain, saying the situation was critical and calling for a comprehensive package. The Corps of Engineers is also coordinating the shipment of a 750-kilowatt generator to St. Thomas to assist in restarting the island’s power plant.

Before the hurricanes, St. Maarten’s Princess Juliana International Airport was one of the former Dutch colony’s major tourist draws thanks to a runway that ended just a few yards from the sandy crescent of Maho Beach, where people could stand and watch as arriving jets skimmed low over their heads. Looting erupted on some Caribbean islands where residents and tourists were stranded with little food, shelter or drinking water.

The troops are delivering food and clean water alongside “survival packs”, with the ship HMS Ocean heading over, loaded with thousands of “long term” supplies. The state of emergency makes it easier for security forces to more easily arrest suspected looters.

The Winnipeg-headquartered company operates 12 stores on the islands that were directly affected by Irma. Flooding has damaged the country’s sugar plantations – sugar is one of its biggest exports. “I am truly heartbroken by this news”. “You try to stay strong in public, but once inside, you break”.