Many residents of Barbuda took shelter in a sports stadium on Antiqua ambassador to the United States told Public Radio International IRMA'S FIRST CASUALTY One death was reported on Barbuda Carl Junior Francis a two year old toddler was ripped from the arms of his caregiver by the wind That caregiver told Eli Fuller a volunteer from Antigua delivering supplies that as the roof came off and the walls caved in she had one arm around a post in her house and the other arm around the child
The wind just pulled the child out of her hands and that was the last they saw of the child Fuller told the New York Post And then they found the child the next morning dead Francis had been the first fatality from Irma He would not be the last A PATHWAY OF DESTRUCTION Irma left a trail of devastation as it moved across the Caribbean and the southeastern United States It finally dissipated on September 16 11 days after it struck Barbuda It killed at least 130 people The total damages rose into the tens of billions of dollars Hurricane Irma was a powerful reminder of the destructive power of nature and the vulnerability of human settlements on islands and in coastal regions The storm also raised questions about the future How did global climate change I WOULD HAVE CRIED BECAUSE THAT DEVASTATION WAS SO HEART WRENCHING I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT IT'S ONE OF THE WORST FEELINGS I'VE EVER FELT IN MY ENTIRE LIFE contribute to its strength And how could people in the path of future hurricanes better prepare GASTON BROWNE PRIME MINISTER OF ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA for storms of this magnitude
CHAPTER TWO A HURRICANE IS BORN On August 27 2017 a weak wave of low pressure in the atmosphere left the western African coast accompanied by showers and thunderstorms as it moved into the Atlantic Ocean Just nine days later it would slam into Barbuda as a devastating hurricane While the strength of Hurricane Irma was unusual the way it formed was not Weather disturbances like the one that became Hurricane Irma move off the African coast every few days during hurricane season Most of them fail to develop any further They may be disrupted by arid winds coming from the Sahara Desert or they may be torn apart by strong high altitude air currents blowing from west to east Stormy weather in the ocean off the coast of Africa eventually morphed into a deadly hurricane thousands of miles to the west
