Category 5 Hurricane Maria Devastates Dominica, Other Islands Targeted

Hurricane Irma bearing down on the Leeward Islands
on Monday. It quickly blew up to a Category 5 storm
with sustained winds of 160 mph. 

Another gorgeous Caribbean Island has just been swallowed up and destroyed by a huge hurricane during this devastating late summer.

It was a worst case scenario for the island nation of Dominica as Category 5 Hurricane Maria hit. 

First of all, they didn't have much time to prepare.  Places like Barbuda and the Virgin Islands at least had about three days to prepare for Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

Hurricane Maria blew up from a tropical storm to a Category 5 monster with 160 mph sustained winds in just 27 hours, all the while bearing down on Dominica, population about 72,000.

Everybody on Dominica was in grave danger. The Prime Minister of Dominca, Roosevelt Skerritt  tweeted during the storm: "My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding."

He was later rescued, but as the winds began to die down he sent out a heartbreaking message:

Skerritt said in part:

"So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace....My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains...."

Skerritt said every roof of every house he knows of on the island was blown off. "I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating... indeed, mind boggling."

Dominica is just the start of Maria's wrath, most unfortunately. The mountains of Dominic barely dented Maria's strength - it knocked the storm back down ever so slightly to a high end Category 4 hurricane.

But now, Hurricane Maria right back up to a Category 5 monster with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.

Maria will remain a Category 4 or 5 storm as it plows through the Virgin Islands and then Puerto Rico in the next couple of days.

Puerto Rico is a real nightmare. It has severe infrastructure and economic problems, and the electrical network still isn't really fully up and running after Puerto Rico was sideswiped by Hurricane Irma a couple weeks ago.

There's a lot of concern about Puerto Ricans living in flimsy wooden or tin houses. "You have to evacuate. Otherwise you're going to die. I don't know how to make this any clearer," said Hector Pesquera, the island's public safety commissioner.

As for the mainland United States and Maria, there's still no guarantees. Unlike during Irma, it looks increasingly like Maria will curve north well before reaching Florida, so the Sunshine State will likely be spared, aside from some coastal flooding and battering waves along the state's east coast.

It is possible that dying Hurricane Jose, which will cause tropical storm conditions along the New England coast, will influence Maria in a good way.

Again, no guarantees, but there are suggestions among at least some of the computer forecasting models that Jose, lingering southeast of New England, could help pull Hurricane Maria northeastward, keeping it away from the United States east coast.

Again, it's important to stress that there's still a chance Maria could have impacts in the United States, so we'll have to keep an eye on this one, just in case.

By the way, up here in Vermont, we're going to stay on our extended period of dry, unseasonably warm weather for the next several days. There were a few pop up showers Monday, but not many, and a little rain from Jose will probably creep into southeastern Vermont Wednesday.

Up in Burlington, we tied the record high of 87 for the date on Monday. It was the fourth consecutive day in the 80s. Today might be the fifth.