.......except when Ron wants to go back to Zahara in St Lucia!
The island has been ravaged by hurricane Tomas overnight. The southern end was particularly badly affected and that's where Hewanorra airport is (was?!) located. We got a text message from Virgin Atlantic at 0645 this morning to say the flight had been delayed by 4 hours and we're still at the B&B and we suspect the flight will be cancelled - BA have already cancelled their flight to St L.
We think that Zahara is OK as she is being well looked after by the marina staff in Marigot Bay which is a well known "hurricane hole". Although Tomas was only a Category 1 hurricane (out of 5), it still gave mean wind speeds of 70kts in the eye wall which went over St Vincent, just to the south of St Lucia. Nevertheless, winds of 40-45 kts were widespread with gusts in excess of 60kts and caused considerable damage to power lines, trees, etc. In addition, several inches of rain have fallen and we've seen reports of bridges and roads washed away. Ron will be contacting his taxi driver later this morning to get a full update on the situation! We're just hoping that Virgin make a decision to cancel the flight sooner rather than later as we just want to go home and Ron doesn't want to get back to an island that's in a mess, and it's unlikely he'd be able to get back to Marigot Bay from the airport due to fallen trees, flooding......... :-(
Still, if two meteorologists can't be philosophical about weather related trauma, who can?!
For those interested in these things, here's a link to the NOAA hurricane site:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
If you click on "tropical weather discussion" you can access a satellite imagery animation.
Updates will follow.......
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