CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell says while it is still too early to give a financial cost to the damage caused to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) by Hurricane Irma, it could reach a staggering one billion US dollars.
“You are talking every government building destroyed. The schools are gone and all of government headquarters. The ministers’ homes and all; no minster’s home was left not destroyed. Parliament gone . . . really, we are looking at an enormous amount of resources that will be needed,” Mitchell said after leading a delegation that visited the islands battered by the Category 5 storm last week.
Mitchell who is Grenada’s Prime Minister said CARICOM was mobilizing some resources to assist the ravaged islands, and would soon hold a donors’ conference in a bid to secure further help.
CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Rocque, who was part of the delegation, described Irma as a “nuclear hurricane”.
Meanwhile, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF SPC) said it would be making payments totalling US$29.6 million to six Caribbean governments impacted by Hurricane Irma under their tropical cyclone insurance policies.
It said the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) will receive US$13.6 million from CCRIF while the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, St. Kitts & Nevis, Haiti and The Bahamas will benefit as a result of their tropical cyclone (TC) insurance policies that they hold with CCRIF.
