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Hurricane damage
On our journey back to the airport, we could see the awful results of the flooding caused by Hurricane Tomas three weeks before. The clean-up operations were still under way as I snapped these pictures through the taxi windows. We felt so sorry for the islanders, who are appealing for international assistance to help with the reconstruction.
Here mud-stained tree-trunks are piled up in front of the river (behind the diggers), which overflowed, ripping the corrugated iron wall out from the bottom of the vegetable stall to the right.
Normally a small stream, this tore a swathe through the trees next to the road. Many peoples' front gardens looked like this.
You can see the bare soil at the top-right where the tree-covered slope above the road slipped down onto the road and over the edge.
This sort of thing was common - the edge of the road has been undermined and has collapsed. The authorities have simply reduced the road to one lane. Hopefully our side of the road is not undermined...
A small stream normally flows in a small culvert beneath the road here. It turned into a boiling torrent, sweeping the road away.
The same location. We've left the road, driven down the bank to the right of the road, and are bumping over the stream bed, looking back up to where the road was washed away. You can see the steel pipe culvert at the bottom of the gulley, while water pipes normally buried at the side of the road are dangling over the hole.
Some poor farmer's banana plantation trashed by a torrent of muddy water. He is looking at next to no income this year...
