Powerful Maria blasts the Caribbean

After placing a direct hit on Dominica as a category 5 storm, Hurricane Maria plowed across Puerto Rico Wednesday, as the second major tropical system to impact the Caribbean in two weeks. The previous hurricane, Irma, left up to US$1bn in damage on the bankrupt island.

Arriving early Wednesday to Puerto Rico's southeastern shore as a marginally weaker category 4 storm, with sustained 225kph winds, Maria left the whole island without power, the governor's office said.

According to the US National Hurricane Center, the storm had weakened to a category 3 storm with 185kph winds over the island's mountainous interior, which was good news for the British Virgin Islands – next in the storm's path– but adds to the potential for deadly mudslides in Puerto Rico.

"This is total devastation," local government spokesperson Carlos Mercader told CNN. "Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same.... This is something of historic proportions."

According to an analysis from catastrophe risk modeler AIR-Worldwide, the bunker-style construction of many structures and "relatively high building code enforcement" should help minimize the damage to Puerto Rico.

Damage reports remain sketchy for Dominica, with a population of roughly 72,000, and widespread devastation is assumed, given early reports on Facebook from Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, describing rooftops ripped from buildings.

A report from the Caribbean News Service indicated there was "tremendous loss of housing an public buildings," including heavy damage to the main hospital, and that there has been little contact with outlying areas though some reports show destruction of homes, roadways and crops.

Dominica is a member of regional catastrophic risk facility CCRIF SPC, so the damage will likely trigger payments on top of those already released in the Caribbean after Irma.

The CCRIF SPC has announced that it has now passed the US$100mn-mark since its inception in 2017 with Irma's impact, which alone has generated payments totaling US$31.2mn, most recently increasing when excess rainfall policies were activated in Anguilla, Turks & Caicos and The Bahamas.

'Automatic recover system' needed

According to UK daily The Guardian, British foreign secretary Boris Johnson called for a more effective system to respond to tropical impacts in the Caribbean, particularly in light of deepening climate change.

On the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, Johnson spoke at a meeting convened by the UK and bringing together British ministers, the French foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian, the Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders and leaders from the Caribbean.

According to the outlet, Johnson said, "If I am being totally honest, people have been ringing each other up and saying, 'what can we do'. We don't need a gigantic new bureaucracy but we do need a smooth way to respond to what is obviously going to be an intensifying pattern of horrific weather events in the Caribbean. What we are trying to build here is a Caribbean recovery plan. We need an automatic recovery system."