Hundreds of Saint Lucians were among millions evacuating parts of the state of Florida on Tuesday, pending the arrival of hurricane Milton Wednesday evening.
Thirteen Florida counties, including Tampa and Orlando, are under mandatory evacuation before Milton’s arrival, while seven others are under voluntary evacuation.
United States officials have warned about the potentially life-threatening impacts of the hurricane.
One Saint Lucian family that St. Lucia Times spoke with Wednesday said they had endured an over five-hour drive from Tampa to Georgia on Tuesday and were hoping for the best.
We also reached out to Darrel Montrose, Saint Lucia’s Consul General in Miami, whose Coral Gables office in Florida remained closed Wednesday.
“We do have a sizeable Saint Lucian population in Tampa and Orlando, the areas expected to feel the full wrath of the hurricane. Further south we are expected to get lots of rain, even if we may not have the full force of the wind,” Montrope said.
“So we have asked everyone to take the necessary precautions and to obey the mandatory evacuation calls if you are in any of the areas that will be in the direct path of Milton,” he added.
Montrope described Florida as a flat expanse of land mass and compared some of the highest points to Morne Fortune in Saint Lucia. “So we are very much aware of what the impact of such a hurricane can feel like,” he said.
To this end, the Saint Lucia Consul General disclosed that he is in dialogue with the Caribbean Consular Corp and the Miami Consular Corp, who are on guard to provide the necessary support.
“We have been mobilising our efforts to protect each other’s interest and we stand ready to assist if there is any eventuality,” Montrope told St. Lucia Times.
The Saint Lucia diplomat had originally scheduled a meet and greet with Saint Lucia’s sprint sensation Julien Alfred for Wednesday October 9.
The activity, which was to take place at the Hallandale High School, has been postponed.
Saint Lucia carnival was also scheduled to be launched in Miami on Thursday October 10 and that too has been postponed.
However, the 40th anniversary of Miami Carnival is still on according to organisers, despite travel concerns due to the hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” late on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
Forecasters are warning of torrential rain, flash flooding, high winds, and possible storm surges.
The PM has said he looses sleep on the pressure on small island states that global warming presents and he is right to do so . In my view greater demands should be made on the so called developed nations who are the major contributors to carbon emissions to set up a fund for those ever increasing occurrences in our region .
The CIP could also include and additional financial clause as a condition which our citizenship are sold.
Gregor Forde. The earth has existed for 4,540,000,000 years. Weather records (for a limited region of the planet) started a little over 200 years ago. How can you extrapolate the entirety of the planet’s climate from a timeline representing 0.00000441% of the planet’s existence and from a small corner of the earth? No one knew the exact temperature in 1850. And when temperature records started in the 1880s the instruments we not spread over the entire planet. They were stationed in London. Furthermore, no one can vouch for the accuracy of these instruments back then. Satellite ocean surface temperature readings started in the 1980s. Again how can you possible make such a claim with such limited data?
There is no climate emergency. The planet is always active and will be active until in becomes like Mars. Plants need Carbon Dioxide. No Carbon Dioxide and the planet dies.
https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/