Hurricane Dorian, the 1st named hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane season, formed on Saturday August 24, 2019. At the peak of strength, Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane had sustained winds of 185 mph with gusts of up to 220 mph. Estimated rainfall was 12-15 inches, and storm surge 18-23 feet above sea level.
As a Tropical Storm, Dorian placed four (4) CDEMA Participating States - Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia and Dominica - under Tropical Storm Warning and one (1) CDEMA Participating State - British Virgin Islands under Hurricane Warning.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida, at 8:00 PM AST, the eye of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 26.8 North, longitude 78.4 West. Dorian remains nearly stationary just north of Grand Bahama Island. A slow west-northwestward motion is expected to resume overnight and continue into early Tuesday. A turn toward the northwest is forecast by late Tuesday, with a north-eastward motion forecast to begin by Wednesday night. On this track, the core of extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian will continue to pound Grand Bahama Island into Tuesday morning.
An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft has found that maximum sustained winds are near 140 mph (220 km/h) with higher gusts. Dorian is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Although gradual weakening is forecast, Dorian is expected to remain a powerful hurricane during the next couple of days.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km).
The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) was activated at 7:15 AM on Wednesday August 28, 2019.
The Governor issued a curfew from 2:00 PM on August 28 to 6:00 AM on August 29, 2019.
The NEOC was relocated from the Sims Building to its alternate location at the 911 Centre in the Peebles Hospital at 2:30 PM.
All non-essential health services were be closed, including the clinics at East End, Long Look, Road Town Health Centre and Capoons’ Bay. Clinics on Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke and Anegada remained opened.
There was loss of electrical power across the Territory; the BVI Electrical Corporation has identified the problem and has been working to restore services.
The Regional Coordination Plan (RCP) remains activated (as at August 28, 2019)
The Regional Response Teams remain on ALERT: (CARICOM Disaster Assessment and Coordination (CDAC), CARICOM Operational Support Team (COST), Rapid Needs Assessment Team (RNAT), the Multi-National Civil Military Coordination Cell (MNCCC) and the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit (CDRU). CDAC and RNAT.
CDEMA and the UN Resident Coordinator co-chaired the fourth meeting of the Regional Response Mechanism Partners - Caribbean Development Partners Group - Disaster Management (CDPG DM), at 1:00 PM today, August 28, 2019 at the CDEMA CU in Lower Estate, St. Michael, Barbados. The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) provided a brief to this meeting.
CDEMA CU urges all Participating States and members of the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM) to continue to monitor the progress of this system as it tracks on to the northwestern Caribbean States.
The CDEMA CU will continue to monitor the track of Hurricane Dorian and provide updates as necessary. For more information please visit www.cdema.org