Roseau, Dominica (TDN)
- Hours after a devastating category five hurricane made a direct hit on Dominica on Monday, reports are emerging of multiple casualties and damage to at least 90 percent of the building stock on the island.
The hurricane took out all communication systems, toppled utility poles, uprooted trees, triggered landslides and blocked roads across the island.
There was no communication with anyone on Dominica since 4:00 A.M Tuesday until TDN Radio (tdnradio.net), which has been broadcasting using the internet servers of local radio station Q95 FM radio published a list of local HAM radio operators in Dominica.
Operators in the US and throughout the Caribbean got to work in attempting to contact their counterparts in Dominica.
Julian Antoine one such operator called tdnradio.net live at 2:48 P.M to report that he had made two way radio contact with ham operator J73JJ. According to Antoine, the operator informed him that there “was at least 95 percent roof damage to buildings that he could see, landslides in every direction, flooding, and downed trees.”
He also indicated that there was at least one fatality in a particular village, and 5 in another ( a village in the country’s North close to Portsmouth). People were also walking around the country’s capital dazed and listless.
Prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit who had to be rescued from his home after losing the roof to his building sent out a Face Book message at 4:04 A.M just moments before all communication lines went down.
Skerrit noted that the country had “lost everything that money could buy and replace.” He described a situation of total devastation right across the Island.
The category 5 hurricane which moved from a tropical storm in less than 24 hours barreled across the island with the center coming across over the Petite Savanne area to the South of the country. This exposed 98 percent of the 29 x 15 mile Island to the dangerous 185 mile an hour gusts residing in the North Eastern quadrant of the eye wall.
Hundreds of concerned relatives called in to the live reporting of tdnradio.net pleading for information on family and friends. This included several relatives of students from the US Ross University Campus situated in Portsmouth.
In response the university provided the number 1 800 488 8790 for relatives to call for pertinent information on their loved ones.
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