Hurricane Tomas slowly batters St. Lucia
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On October 30, Tomas was located at 13.5N and 61.7W, with maximum sustained winds of up to 90 miles per hour and moving in a West-North-West direction, but at only nine miles per hour.
The Met Office personnel explained that the slow movement allowed the entire island to be slowly battered.
Electricity has been partly restored in some areas, but telecommunications remain a challenge.
Both mobile service providers have issued free credit to customers to facilitate emergency calls.
Radio and TV stations remained off air with only one broadcasting during the hurricane, but most are now back, reporting damage and facilitating messages to relatives from persons in inaccessible areas.
Water supply has been cut island-wide and there's much concern about quality and availability.
The John Compton Dam – the island's largest, which also feeds the capital, Castries – remains inaccessible due to landslide damage.
Residents are being urged to conserve available drinking water and to boil tap water before drinking.
The island's health authorities have issued early warnings about possible disease outbreaks resulting from the unsanitary conditions that will inevitably develop from a lack of safe drinking water.
They also urge sanitary protocols, including frequently washing hands and safe food handling.
The island's entire agriculture industry – particularly its main export crop, bananas – was severely affected, with 100 percent crop damage reported in most areas.
Livestock fared no better, with reports of drowned cattle being slaughtered for sale, resulting in NEMO warning the public not to purchase drowned animal meat and Prime Minister Stephenson King indicating that persons caught will be arrested.
The Ministry of Education has closed all schools for the rest of the week, but public and commercial houses resumed business as of the morning of November 2.
Meanwhile, the bad weather's not yet all over, as the island's Met Office is forecasting and tracking a tropical wave located about 600 miles east of the Southern Windward Islands, moving West at almost 15 miles per hour.
The system is expected to reach the islands within the next 48 hours, by Thursday evening at the latest.
NEMO has also warned of possibly more landslides if rainfall persists, as ground surfaces remain waterlogged; however, according to the Met Office, the island is no longer under storm threat.
