Hurricane Irma wreaks havoc in Barbuda

Recovery will take months, if not years – Browne

(AP) Nearly every building on the island of Barbuda was damaged when the eye of the storm passed almost directly overhead early Wednesday and about 60 percent of the island’s roughly 1,400 people were left homeless, Antigua & Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told reporters.

“Either they were totally demolished or they would have lost their roof,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island. “It is just really a horrendous situation.”
“As it stands, Barbuda is practically uninhabitable,” Browne told Antigua/Barbuda Broadcasting Services, adding that destruction on the island home to nearly 1,700 people was “heart-wrenching.”

He said roads and telecommunications systems were destroyed and recovery will take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm.

Browne had released an optimistic statement early Wednesday from lesser-hit Antigua, which is home to about 80,000.
“It is clear that Antigua & Barbuda has stood up to a mighty test,” he wrote in the statement posted to Facebook.

But he revised his opinion after taking a helicopter ride to survey the damage to Barbuda, which is just 48 kilometers (30 miles) north of Antigua.
“I never contemplated any possibility that you could have such a contrast,” he said of the relative destruction. Browne said he would order both islands evacuated should Hurricane Jose, which is brewing out in the Atlantic, head their way.