ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES has a very long road of recovery ahead as its infrastructure is in tatters and key sectors of its economy are also in disarray after heavy rains caused deaths, landslides and flooding last week.
Howie Prince, the director of the country’s National Emergency Management Organization, gave a bleak assessment when a DAILY NATION team interviewed him in his office on Sunday night.
“We have a situation where, on Christmas Eve in a matter of a few hours, 80 millimetres (3.1 inches) of rain fell on the coastline and we expect much, much more fell in the mountainous areas as a result of a low-level trough system which sat on us for around six hours,” he said.
Prince said this had caused “unprecedented” wide-ranging infrastructural damage and loss of life.
“At this point we have nine persons confirmed dead and three persons still missing,”?he said.
“The destruction we have seen is unprecedented in relation to almost any event we have seen in St Vincent and the Grenadines as we have been impacted before by floods and hurricanes, but it has never been on this level.”
