Island of Barbuda Completely Empty After Destruction From Hurricane Irma

As Hurricane Maria hits Puerto Rico, island officials are asking for international help in helping rebuild Barbuda.

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico Wednesday, with experts predicting it will cause "life-threatening flooding" in the region in the coming days. As Maria makes its way through the Caribbean, international organizations are being urged to provide additional donations to help with recovery efforts stemming from previous damage endured during Hurricane Irma. On the eastern Caribbean island of Barbuda, for example, conditions are so dire that absolutely no one is currently living there.

According to the New York Times, Rodney Williams, governor general of Antigua and Barbuda, addressed the United Nations Monday. "We ask the international community to help us, not because we want to outstretch a begging bowl, but because forces far beyond our control have pushed us to this dire situation," Williams said. "Rebuilding Barbuda is not a task we can undertake alone."

Current estimates place the cost of repairing Barbuda at $300 million. Additionally, Antigua is in need of assistance as it scrambles to provide enough shelter and related relief efforts to "hundreds" of people affected by the storms. As of July of this year, the population of the Antigua and Barbuda commonwealth was estimated at nearly 95,000. An estimated 97 percent of those people resided on Antigua.

BOu4Ckwl

Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda's U.S. ambassador, described the situation as a "humanitarian disaster" during a conversation with Public Radio International last week. "For the first time in 300 years, there's not a single living person on the island of Barbuda—a civilization that has existed in that island for close to, over 300 years has now been extinguished," Sanders said.

Meanwhile, the alleged president of the not-very-United States is convinced the world revolves around his piss-tinged complexion and swears climate change is a hoax. It's not, asshole. Personally, I'm all for the Vic Mensa approach of getting all climate change deniers the fuck out of government entirely.

Latest in Life