By: Staff Writer
July 6, 2021
The first named hurricane for the Caribbean, Elsa, battered Barbados and is now moving up West-Northwest throughout the remainder of the Caribbean.
Elsa, a category 2 hurricane, moved briskly through Barbados over the past weekend leaving behind torn roofs and many people thankful that it was not worse than it could have been.
Elsa was a little weaker and slower Sunday as it swirls away from Haiti toward Jamaica and Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Centre, but a tropical storm warning is in effect for the Florida Keys. The Bahamas is currently out of the path.
The storm claimed the lives of two people during separate events in the Dominican Republic on Saturday. A 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman were killed when walls collapsed on them, according to a statement from the Emergency Operations Centre.
Another death was reported in St Lucia, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. No details were released.
Despite it weakening, it still left a trail of damage as three people have been confirmed dead due to then tropical storm Elsa as it continues to snake its way towards Cuba and Jamaica.
Andrew Holness, prime minister of Jamaica, sent out a tweet on his official Twitter page that Jamaicans should be prepared for Elsa to make landfall
Elsa is now trolling briskly over Cuba at the moment after the Cuban government having evacuated some 200,000 people from low lying areas in the storm’s path. Elsa has now been downgraded to a tropical storm and is expected to be a tropical storm by the time it gets to Jamaica later this week.
Images and videos from Barbados shows us just how much a Cat-2 hurricane can do as it not only tore off roofs, but knocked out electricity for over 24 hours with it just being restored on Sunday evening.
People are hoping that as it reaches the mountainous Cuba that the storm continues to break apart and weaken further to just depression levels as it continues further west into the empty Gulf of Mexico where it will hopefully dissipate.
Within a region slammed with record setting storms in Hurricane Irma and Maria in 2017 and Dorian in 2019, the region could ill afford another catastrophic impact on one of its islands.
