About 24-hours ago, Hurricane IRMA made landfall in Puerto Rico with heavy rain and powerful winds leaving nearly 900,000 people without power as authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands.
Nearly every building on the island of Barbuda was damaged when the eye of the storm passed and about 60 percent of the island’s roughly 1,400 people were left homeless,
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press. “Either they were totally demolished or they would have lost their roof. It is just really a horrendous situation.”
He said roads and telecommunications systems were destroyed and recovery will take months, if not years. He also said a 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm.
The U.S. National Weather Service said Puerto Rico had not seen a hurricane of Irma’s magnitude since Hurricane San Felipe in 1928, which killed a total of 2,748 people in Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and Florida.