A series of Facebook posts by Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit captured the fury of the storm as it made landfall on the mountainous island.
“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” Skerrit wrote at the start of a series of increasingly harrowing posts.
A few min
utes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanized steel roofs tearing off houses on the small rugged island.
He then wrote that he thought his home had been damaged. And three words: “Rough! Rough! Rough!”
A half hour later, he said: “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Seven minutes later he posted that he had been rescued.
Hurricane warnings were issued for the British Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Martinique and St Lucia – all of which are still recovering from Irma.
At least 37 people were killed by Hurricane Irma, which caused billions of pounds of damage. Sir Richard Branson’s private Necker island, part of the British Virgin Islands, was destroyed.
Read more here