{"id":158828,"date":"2022-09-02T11:24:27","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=158828"},"modified":"2022-09-02T11:27:06","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:27:06","slug":"caribbean-matters-remembering-hurricane-irma-five-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/caribbean-matters-remembering-hurricane-irma-five-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Caribbean Matters: Remembering Hurricane Irma, five years later"},"content":{"rendered":"
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https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2022\/9\/1\/2119723\/-Caribbean-Matters-Remembering-Hurricane-Irma-five-years-later<\/p>

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Denise Oliver Velez<\/a>\u00a0for<\/span>\u00a0Community Contributors Team<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
Community<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While there has been\u00a0speculation about the 2022 Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season<\/a>, which has thankfully not generated any major named storms yet, this month marks the five-year anniversary of two devastating storms that hit the Caribbean:\u00a0Irma and Maria. The countries affected still\u00a0have not yet fully recovered, and we see very little coverage of this\u00a0in the U.S, beyond the damage Maria inflicted on Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

In honor of this dark\u00a0anniversary, let\u2019s\u00a0take\u00a0look back at Hurricane Irma; we\u2019ll\u00a0revisit Hurricane Maria next week, and of course\u00a0we\u2019ll explore\u00a0where things stand today.<\/p>

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Caribbean Matters<\/a>\u00a0is a weekly series from Daily Kos<\/em>. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out\u00a0Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>

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The first Category 5 storm of the 2017 season was Hurricane Irma, which formed on Aug.\u00a030, 2017 and dissipated on Sept. 13.\u00a0For those of you who are meteorology-minded, here is a portion of the\u00a0National Hurricane Center\u2019s\u00a0\u201cTropical Cyclone Report\u201d on\u00a0Hurricane Irma<\/a>, as\u00a0applicable\u00a0to the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

By early on 4 September, Irma\u2019s eye was growing in size and becoming better defined, and deep convection around the eye was gaining symmetry. Irma was on a strengthening trend once again, likely due to the completion of an eyewall replacement cycle, and it was headed toward the northern Leeward Islands. Irma turned west-northwestward, due to the erosion of the western side of the mid-level ridge (Fig 5b), and went through another round of rapid intensification. The hurricane reached its maximum intensity of 155 kt around 1800 UTC 5 September, when it was located about 70 n mi east-southeast of Barbuda. As a category 5 hurricane, Irma made landfall on Barbuda around 0545 UTC 6 September with maximum winds of 155 kt and a minimum pressure of 914 mb (Fig. 6a).<\/p>\n

After crossing Barbuda, Irma continued to exhibit an impressive satellite appearance and made its second landfall on St. Martin at 1115 UTC that day, with the same wind speed and pressure as for its Barbuda landfall. Still moving west-northwestward to the south of a mid-level ridge, Irma made its third landfall on the island of Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands at 1630 UTC 6 September still as a 155-kt category 5 hurricane. Later that day, as Irma moved away from the Virgin Islands, reconnaissance data from the Air Force indicated that the major hurricane had weakened slightly and had a double wind maximum, indicative of concentric eyewalls. The double eyewall structure was also evident in Doppler radar data from San Juan, Puerto Rico (Fig. 7)<\/p>\n

Even though Irma was no longer at its peak intensity, it remained a category 5 hurricane with a larger wind field than it had previously (Fig. 4). The eye of Irma tracked about 50 n mi to the north of the northern shore of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic from 1800 UTC 6 September to 1800 UTC 7 September, with the strongest winds to the north of the center.<\/p>\n

The eye of Irma passed just south of the Turks and Caicos Islands around 0000 UTC 8 September, and it made landfall on Little Inagua Island in the Bahamas at 0500 UTC that day at category 4 intensity, with estimated maximum winds of 135 kt and a minimum pressure of 924 mb. This slight weakening ended Irma\u2019s 60-h period of sustained category 5 intensity, which is the second longest such period on record (behind the 1932 Cuba Hurricane of Santa Cruz del Sur). Irma then turned slightly to the left, due to a building subtropical ridge, and moved toward the northern coast of Cuba (Fig. 5c). Reconnaissance and microwave data indicate that the inner core had become better organized, and it is estimated that Irma strengthened to a category 5 hurricane again around 1800 UTC 8 September, only 18 h after weakening below that threshold.<\/p>\n

Irma then intensified a little more and made its fifth landfall near Cayo Romano, Cuba, at 0300 UTC 9 September, with estimated maximum winds of 145 kt (Fig. 6b). This marked the first category 5 hurricane landfall in Cuba since Huracan sin Precedentes in 1924. Irma tracked along the Cuban Keys throughout that day, and its interaction with land caused it to weaken significantly, first to a category 4 storm a few hours after landfall in the Cuban Keys and then down to a category 2 hurricane by 1800 UTC that day when the eye was very near Isabela de Sagua. Shortly after that time, the forward speed of Irma slowed, and it began to make a turn to the northwest, which caused the core of the hurricane to move over the Florida Straits early on 10 September.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Sept 7, 2017, NPR\u2019s Scott Neuman\u00a0chronicled\u00a0the damage,<\/a>\u00a0going from island to island, tracking\u00a0Irma\u2019s path.<\/p>\n

A string of tiny Caribbean islands have been left stunned and devastated by the destructive force of Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest storms ever to hit the region. Some islands appear to have been spared, but others suffered loss of life and damage on a near-apocalyptic scale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He started with Antigua and Barbuda.<\/p>\n

In Barbuda, communications were severed as Irma made landfall just before midnight on Tuesday. Antigua, 25 miles to the south, dodged the full force of the storm, prompting Prime Minister Gaston Browne at first to declare it a miracle that his nation had been spared.<\/p>\n

But as it turned out, Browne had spoken too soon. It was only after communication began to be restored and he was able to visit Barbuda that the damage to the smaller of the two islands became clear. “I journeyed to Barbuda this afternoon and what I saw was heart-wrenching, absolutely devastating,” Browne\u00a0said on state-owned television<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday afternoon. “In fact, I believe that on a per capita basis, the extent of the destruction in Barbuda is unprecedented. And it is unprecedented, based on the type of storm. Hurricane Irma would have been easily the most powerful hurricane to have stormed through the Caribbean, and it is extremely unfortunate that Barbuda was right in its path.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As noted by Prime Minister Browne below,\u00a0at least 95% of the island was affected.<\/p>\n

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