ROSEAU, DOMINICA—Dominica’s leader sent out an emotional call for help as Category 5 hurricane Maria smashed into the Caribbean island, causing “mind-boggling” devastation, but an ominous silence followed as the island lost all communications on Tuesday and the hurricane took aim at Puerto Rico.As rain began lashing the U.S. territory Tuesday afternoon, Puerto Rico’s governor warned that Maria could hit “with a force and violence that we haven’t seen for several generations.”Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit sent a series of dramatic posts on his Facebook page as the storm blew over the tiny country late Monday — but then stopped suddenly as phone and internet connections with the country were cut.“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” Skerrit wrote before communications went down.A few minutes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanized steel roofing tearing off houses on the small rugged island. He said that even his own roof had blown away.In the last message before falling silent, he appealed for international aid: “We will need help, my friends, we will need help of all kinds.”The storm knocked out communications for the entire country, leaving anyone outside Dominica struggling to determine the extent of damage, though it was clearly widespread. “The situation is really grave,” Consul General Barbara Dailey said in a telephone interview from New York.She said she lost contact with the island around 4 a.m. At that point, officials had learned that 70 per cent of homes had lost their roofs, including her own.Read more:Hurricane Irma ‘extinguished’ a 300-year-old civilization in BarbudaPutting hurricanes and climate change into the same frameIn Irma’s aftermath, Black residents of St. Martin complain France is evacuating white tourists first“I lost everything,” she said, addi ...
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