‘Brace for potential storm come Friday’

After braving a day of overcast skies and steady rain Wednesday from a tropical wave, Barbadians were being told this evening to brace for a possible tropical storm as early as Friday morning.

In making the announcement of a tropical storm watch after meeting with emergency managers, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams urged residents to keep close tabs on the progress of what met officials have described as a “potential tropical cyclone”, as yet unnamed.

Abrahams said: “On the current trajectory, the centre of the system should pass very close to Barbados and we expect to start feeling the effects of this system from Friday morning. You should expect strong winds and significant rainfall.”

Sea conditions are expected to deteriorate in open water with swells of four to six metres and in particular to the east-south-east and southwest of the island.

Abrahams pointed out that this is the first advisory and that conditions are subject to change.

“We are closely monitoring the system and we urge Barbadians please to monitor our official media channels and our media partners… Government Information Service, Public Affairs Division and our established media partners for updates so you can keep current on the developments with respect to the system,” he said.

“Earlier today we have impacts from another system that had two bouts of severe rain and thunder and lightning. We have had significant flooding in St Michael and central parts of Barbados. We have had reports of damage to property, collapsed ceilings, leaking roofs, trees that are about to topple over.”

While reminding Barbadians that this is the hurricane season and the island was being affected by various weather events, Abrahams disclosed that ministers are to be briefed on the disaster management agencies level of preparedness for the likely storm.

“We ran through their level of preparedness,” the interior minister said. We also met and discussed things specific to this system because we need to be prepared for this coming system as well.

“Tomorrow morning, Cabinet is going to take a brief on our preparedness efforts and any last-minute fine-tuning we need to do, we will try to get that out of the way as quickly as possible. So I am asking people just please monitor and keep monitoring our official sources so you too can be informed as the system develops.”

By evening, residents were seen in the usual pre-storm ritual, crowding supermarkets to stock up on emergency supplies, one month into the start of the annual hurricane season, expected this year to be above normally busy.
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)