Floods, landslides forecast as BVI brace for Maria

Safety and survival were foremost in the minds of those in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) last evening as they awaited the descent of Category 5 Hurricane Maria, the second tropical storm to hit in the space of about two weeks.

“Persons are more concerned about staying safe and surviving what’s coming our way. Given the fact that Irma took all the vegetation, Maria has nothing to hold on to but structures and she is coming with lots of water unlike Irma. Landslides and extensive flooding is the main fear now,” Cathy Richards, a Guyanese who now resides in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, told Stabroek News yesterday.

Hurricane Maria only a day before pummeled the island of Dominica, and killed at least one man in Guadeloupe.