Hurricane Irma slammed into Grand Turk on Thursday evening, ripping off dozens of residential roofs, flooding streets, snapping utility poles and causing an island-wide blackout. It also damaged the roof of the hospital in Cockburn Town, the capital of Turks and Caicos, a British overseas territory.
Providenciales, the most populous of the Turks and Caicos’s 40 islands, was experiencing howling winds, rough seas and steady rain. Hurricane shelters across the island were full. A government spokesman, Zhavago Jolly, said he had not received any reports of fatalities or injuries.
Earlier in the day, Virginia Clerveaux, the director of the Disaster Management Department, warned that emergency workers would “not be able to provide relief services during this time until further notice.”
As the Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of up to 175 miles an hour, continues to tear through the Caribbean, it is now heading for the Bahamas and the northern coast of Cuba.
A second storm, Jose, strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean and could hit Antigua and Barbuda which suffered extensive flooding and wind damage from Irma.
