19 DEAD, 25 MISSING
By MIRANDA LA ROSE, Saturday, August 29 2015, Source
THE people of Dominica were yesterday struggling to cope with the disaster zone their island had become, with varying accounts of death and persons missing in the wake of the bashing they received from Tropical Storm Erika.
Latest reports by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) last night put the death toll at 19 with 25 missing, although Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit wrote on his Facebook page that confirmed deaths stood at 12, a figure he expects to rise. yesterday afternoon Daryl Titre, Skerrit’s press attache, told Newsday that eight bodies had been recovered as at 3.00 pm and two dozen people had been unaccounted for.
The tropical storm waged a 12-hour onslaught on the island from 2 am to 2 pm on Thursday, dumping more than five inches of rain whose torrents brought down hillsides triggering mudslides, inundating roadways, washing away bridges and houses, and rendering the main airport inaccessible.
Trinidad and Tobago reacted promptly making a helicopter available to the island’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit to fly home from St Lucia following a trip to the United States, and to enable him to do an initial survey of the damage throughout yesterday. Skerrit addressed Dominicans on the dire situation in their country last night.
Those missing, Titre said earlier, included persons who were washed away by swift flowing flood waters from rivers that broke their banks at the source and came down the hills and mountain sides.
Urgently needed, Titre said, were bottled water, canned foods, clothing and medications, blankets and cots, especially for those affected outside of the capital city of Roseau.
Throughout yesterday business places in the capital who were unaffected were pledging via the Dominica Broadcasting Corporation (DBC), food and water and other necessities to be sent to areas which were cut off from the capital. A ferry from Roseau became the prime means of transport to other parts of the island.
(See Page 18) Trinidad and Tobago Government, he said, was one of the first to contact Skerrit and the first to arrive on the ground with assistance in the form of two helicopters from its Air Guard. The Trinidad and Tobago Government said it will provide financial assistance as well as other forms of assistance on an “as needs basis” to aid Dominica in its recovery from the damage wreaked on the island. Communication Minister, Vasant Bharath, told Newsday yesterday that the TT Government was due to take a decision last evening on the amount of the financial assistance it will give to Dominica, Bharath said that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was in contact with her Dominican counterpart Roosevelt Skerrit for feedback on an immediate needs assessment and will respond accordingly.
On Thursday TT provided two helicopters to aid in recovery, one of which transported Skerrit to Dominica from St Lucia where he was stranded after returning from the United States.
One of the helicopters was also used yesterday to transport Skerrit to Petite Savanne, one of the hardest hit areas in the country affected by floods, land and mud slides.
According to Skerrit, in the Petite Savanne area, a number of houses and vehicles, he said, were swept away in the foods and landslides.
On his Facebook page, Skerrit noted that Venezuela also provided two helicopters, and Newsday understands that the French territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique have also provided helicopters.
“I have received several calls from my regional colleagues, friends from outside of the region, pledging their support,” Skerrit wrote. “ I thank Trinidad especially during the election campaign to make available, two helicopters to us,” he wrote.
He said, “Thanks to the helicopters, we have been able to airlift injured persons to the Princess Margaret Hospital in Roseau.” Meanwhile, Titre told Newsday that damage have been heavy and it will take hundreds of millions of US dollars to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, including the 30-mile highway from Roseau to Portsmouth, the Douglas- Charles Airport, and to assist people to rebuild their livelihoods.
Areas have been cut off and many persons marooned in villages where bridges and roads have been washed away, Titre said.
Among those marooned, he said, were a number of Government officials including the country’s Education Minister, Petter Saint- Jean, who could not leave the main village of La Plaine in his constituency yesterday because the bridge to the village was washed away.
Electricity had been returned to some sections of Roseau, Titre said, but pipe-borne water was yet to be restored.
Telecommunications to some parts of the island, he said, had also been restored. At the height of the storm, Titre said, there was no telecommunication service.
Communications Minister Ian Pinard speaking on Trinidad radio yesterday, suggested that the storm, on the basis of weather forecasts, was not anticipated to pass directly over the island, and so caught the population not as fully prepared as they should have been. A number of people were evacuated to shelters and to homes that were not affected by sand, mud and stones that filled many of them.
The coastal village of Coulisbistrie, a resident has been levelled. He said that a 70-year old man, whose home was washed out to sea, was the only person missing from the area.
The infrastructure of the village, including schools, he said, was badly damaged. Almost to the date, Dominica was devastated by Hurricane David 36 years ago. When that storm struck on August 29, 1979, it killed close to 50 persons and wiped out the Dominica banana industry.