The most recent advisory has Tropical Dorian at 11.5N and 54.W or about 375 miles East-southeast of Barbados. The weather hunter is scheduled to examine the system at 8PM tonight- a firm decision will be made regarding the timing of the national shutdown soon after.
Feel free to use this space constructively to assist anyone search for information.
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Barbados Light & Power has dismissed as “fake news” what it said was a rumour circulating on social media that it was shutting down power islandwide at 6:30 p.m.
Speaking on television a short while ago, manager, communications and government relations, Jackie Marshall-Clarke, said BL&P would try to supply power “as long as possible” during the storm.
BL&P also advised residents to familiarise themselves with the location of the main switch in their homes in the event it had to be shut off as the winds increased or water got into the home.
… a storm in a teacup so far!!
Exactly.
We lose about two working days due to this mild breeze. And this with the already low productivity, especially of the lazy civil servants.
Our Honourable Prime Minister must now crack down and cancel two public holidays for the civil servants.
One: the storm hasn’t passed yet.
Two: Cancelling two holidays won’t happen.
Three: Go to sleep.
Wind picking up a bit and rain becoming a bit more constant
@ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife August 26, 2019 9:05 PM
We lose 2 of about 200 working days, so again less economic growth – and you’re talking about resting … No wonder Barbados has had zero growth for 11 years with this attitude.
Can we stop the frivolous comments please?
Hope lessons are learned so that you are better prepared for the next one which could be as soon as later this year .
We are experiencing the center about to pass, the tail of the system is about to start up.
@Hants
One area we need to improve is getting people to get to the gas stations and supermarkets a little earlier. If we can improve this the traffic situation will improve.
@ David,
I hope people will use Grenville’s suggestions to make their existing houses more storm resistant.
It is better to shelter in your own home than in a shelter with strangers.
CBC.bb coverage is good. I am watching the lovely lady with braids. lol
“Three: Go to sleep.”
Some slept through the whole damn thing, don’t even know what happened.lol
It is amazing what effect the threat of a hurricane has had on this government’s behaviour. Brandon’s canal has been cleared of all its debris. I understand that other watercourses have also been cleared. Hopefully they will clear the numerous gullies on the island that have become veritable dumping grounds for the nasty islanders.
So lets have more hurricanes. It will bring a change to the behaviour of government and the masses.
https://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/241472/video-canal-brandons-cleared
William Skinner stated that this hurricane threat has become political. I agree with him. It has been a God send for the Prime MInister. She has had an opportunity to grandstand. My message to her is simple: “enough of these PR stunts!”
It is a national disgrace that it has taken the threat of a hurricane for this government to clean up its act. How about sorting out the infrastructure of the country. This is the norm in any develop country. The clearance of a canal should be neither political nor a PR stunt.
Why was it necessary to close down the country at 12.00pm? Complete overkill!
So thankful Barbados was spared.
Good to see the level of preparation Barbadians from observation heeded the call from authorities.
Wishing others up the island chain are spared as well.
Its is nice to see that Hurricane Dorian has passed Barbados without any severe damage. We are a lucky people and for tht we must be thankful
However, let me offer a correction to any earlier post. I said that a 100-year-old man, who lives alone, has not been contacted or visited by any officials, or even his constituency MP.
That simple statement has metamorphosed, as part of the Bajan Condition, in to a discussion about his relatives, friends and neighbours – none of which I have mentioned.
However, it is the responsibility of a liberal democratic state (which differentiates us from Confucian ones) to look after the welfare of its citizens. It cannot delegate that responsibility to relatives or the generosity of friends and neighbours. That is a state responsibility.
If we are now saying the compact between citizen and state is one in which the state can offload some of its obligations, then where do we draw the line? If security during a state of emergency and an accompanying curfew can be offloaded, then what else? Medicare? Pensions? Social care? Nutrition? Can the state opt in and out as it deems fit?
For those who are interested, the old boy survived and coped very well. He represents everything that is good about Barbados.
..
@TLSN
Let me make it clear. My reference was directed at comments made on BU. I never will drag any Prime Minister into such nonsense. The PM acted as any PM should when the country is confronted by imminent danger.
@ David
What level of preparedness are you talking about? If you did like I did, walked through town yesterday ,you would have seen the opposite. All supermarkets were jammed pack. The stores formerly called the three-dollar stores are a case in point. The one in Swan Street had to shut its doors . it was jammed packed inside and outside there was a line of customers lined up to go inside.
I have read some of the comments. Some of them are puerile indeed: with the belly-aching about working days missed. I was eight years when Janet visited, The only warning we had was that given by Radio-fusion at 2AM on the morning of the 22nd.September. The previous night Archie Moore had fought Rocky Marciano for the heavy weight title. At 6AM,the radio repeated the warnings. My mum told us at 2AM that a hurricane was coming. I hadn’t heard that word before ,so I asked her what it meant; she said it meant a big wind. No one talked about hurricanes in those days; everyone talked about storms .My older brother and myself had to get nails and secure the windows on the house. We gave shelter to some people at the height of the hurricane, who were fleeing from the Bay-land. they wanted to reach St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church. They convinced my mother to vacate the house and accompanied them to the Church. That was an experience. The galvanize sheets where like missiles and there was debris from trees every where. The coconut trees were graceful, bowing down until their tops almost touch the ground and springing back up. The Cabbage Palms were vulnerable, the wind severed their crowns( I observed all this during the hurricane by peering through a chink in the back door and the front windows). Waves where breaking from the horizon and the sea was white and the air full of spray The aftermath of the hurricane was one of total destruction. Trees were down all over the place. There weren’t many power saws in those days, so removal of down branches was done by cutlass and hand saws. Lots of houses were destroyed. There was a hell of a lot of working days missed
When did Dorian become a hurricane?
It was compared to Tomas in late 2010, October 29-November 14.
Tomas was a hurricane, Dorian was/is a storm.
There are a few reasons why Dorian was a storm in a teacup.
FIRST – Too early, three weeks later and it would have packed a punch … Janet was Srptember 22
SECOND – It weakened yesterday
THIRD – The Met Office said the strongest winds were in the North East Quadrant, that passed north of us.
Not much rain despite predictions of 6-8 inches.
Only 25 parts since midnight, about 10 parts from 6:00pm – midnight.
Dorian for us was no more than a storm in a teacup.
The problem now is what happens in 3 weeks when we really got to be looking out!!!
Have the authorities cried wolf too early?
I however agree it was always better to be safe than sorry but we got it wrong.
Martinique and Dominica will get the Northeast quadrant with the strongest winds.
We will see what happens there.
My guess is not much with wind but perhaps a lot of rain because of the mountains.
What really interest me is why we continue to wait until there is a disaster to prepare. Why are we continuing to build houses that are unsafe and why are we constantly being thrown into excessive panic in these situations.
Grenville (Solutions Barbados) has stated that certain recommendations, regarding such matters were apparently passed bu the Sandiford administration. After Sandiford , Arthur (BLP) was in power for nearly fifteen years and then the Thompson and Stuart(DLP) for ten years and these measures were not implemented. That’s twenty five years and now twenty six. This once again shows the failure of this decadent Duopoly to take the welfare of our citizens seriously.
The Duopoly Rules
I heard of two people who said Dorian was nothing yesterday morning!!
One of them went by the wind direction!!
His argument was that the wind should have been from the west if there was a serious low pressure to the east of us.
Here is the data on Dorian.
TROPICAL DEPRESSION FIVE, , 10.4, -47.9, 30, 1010
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 10.7, -49.1, 35, 1008
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 10.9, -50.4, 35, 1008
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 11.0, -51.6, 35, 1008
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 11.2, -52.9, 35, 1008
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 11.5, -54.2, 45, 1003
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 11.7, -55.3, 45, 1003
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 11.9, -56.4, 50, 1002
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 12.3, -57.7, 50, 1002
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 12.7, -58.8, 50, 1002
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 13.2, -59.7, 45, 1003
TROPICAL STORM DORIAN, , 13.5, -60.7, 45, 1005
Only an 8 millibar drop, 1010-1002!!
Real hurricanes go into the low 900’s.
Dorian was a storm in a teacup.
Still, it was always better to be safe than sorry, the barometer was in fact falling but not dramatically.
In 3 weeks or so we may have a different proposition!!
@ Robert Lucas,
Like you I too remember Janet. To a little boy it was fun. It was only on reaching maturity that you realised the danger and shock.
Almost the entire Ivy and surrounding area assembled in St Giles, even those whose homes were OK. Lots of wooden houses were blown over.
Government, the Grantley Adams government, reacted fantastically. Food was brought to the evacuees, the mobile cinema was showing programmes almost every night; there was a spirit of community. St Giles boys went to St Barnabas on half days.
Remarkably, in what looked like months life had returned to normal. The then Barbadian spirit overcame those adversities. We are not the same people now. That was Sept 22, 1955.
One pundit on BU a couple weeks ago made the bold claim that life in the early 1960s was better than in the 1950s. As usual, no evidence.
Janet was the biggest external shock to hit our economy since the end of the war, and still is, within months we were planning to build the Deep Water Harbour, the biggest infrastructural project ever undertaken in Barbados. Now we have economists with PhDs talking about austerity and nonsense about foreign reserves and devaluaton. Knowledge is often wasted on the young.
@ David
“Can we stop the frivolous comments please.”
By now you should realize there are some complete jokers on BU who will never understand anything ,not even the piffle they submit now , on an almost daily basis.
Piss poor attempts at what they think is political satire.
I am almost about to say that they should be tracked down and asked to repay every cent for every glass of milk and the biscuits they got at primary school , depending on their age. They should certainly be billed for every ounce of education this country has ever given them.
There should be a special nonsense tax on them for every morning that their eyes open in our country.
@ Hal Austin
Time and time again you demonstrate that you’re not as wise as you want people to believe.
Because you did not mention anything about relatives or friends does not mean others cannot make those references in their comments.
It was you who mentioned a caring society. A society is also made up of people, not only the state. How is asking about the gentleman’s relatives, neighbours or friends is delegating the responsibility of the state to them?
The real Bajan Condition is dirt poor Bajans like you who get the opportunity to live overseas, you marry old WHITE WOMEN rejects, then all of a sudden you have arrived, and Barbados has suddenly become an uncaring society and Barbadians are backwards. You feel you are right about everything and that you know everything.
Hal Austin, you are what typifies the real Bajan Condition. It’s popular among people in your age group.
You came with a comment which was dismissed for the nonsense it was. You felt ashame for being shown up by people you feel are beneath you, and as a keyboard bully and warrior you Are, your best defense is to insult people and be sarcastic.
@ Hal Austin August 27, 2019 6:03 AM
it is nice to hear another veteran talk about that event. It would be interesting teleporting some of the commentators on this blog back to the 1950’s if only just to observe how well they cope with events of that era.
@WS
Good to see that you emerged from the storm with your sense of humor intact.
Unlike you, Some emerged from the storm with their political boots on.
/
All Barbadians should be glad that they were spared from an injurious storm.
Hoping that all can get back to their ‘normal’ routine as quickly and as easily as possible.
Glad it is all over
Mia can stop peeling onions (now) there are no tears to be shed
@ TheOGazerts
These cool aid drinkers need to take their political boots off occasionally. At least to wash their socks and check their toe nails.
We all know the smell of socks on too long and toe nails left unattended for long periods.
Remarkably, in what looked like months life had returned to normal. The then Barbadian spirit overcame those adversities. We are not the same people now. That was Sept 22, 1955.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Janet was believe it or not a minor hurricane!!
It was only the south of the island that was affected badly.
My father tried to get his inlaws to stay at him at Husbands but they insisted on remaining at the family dwelling to which all the rest of the family went.
Result, no damage at Husbands, disaster in the south.
The previous hurricane was in 1898 and the one before that 1831.
These were major hurricanes, especially the one of 1831 with winds estimated by Deighton Best to have been in excess of 200 mph!!.
Dorian was a storm, and a weak one at that.
What we witnessed yesterday was socialism, where big government tells people what to do instead of individuals figuring it out for themselves.
People in the Ivy in 1955 assembled at St. Giles because it was probably the major stone building in existence and was expected to stand.
Bajans had sense back then, … spirit too!!
Like you I too remember Janet. To a little boy it was fun. It was only on reaching maturity that you realised the danger and shock.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was fun because unlike the previous hurricanes, the entire island was not devastated.
But you are right, Bajans of days gone by had spirit and rebuilt!!
… and lots more common sense!!
Goren,
i must call into account your attacking Hal on the morning of a storm that threatened by whimpered away. Thank God! then to hear you disparaging Hal like you did and making nasty and personal references to the person you think he married even if a joke. despicable behaviour from you. why dont you do like Dorian and whimper away please.
Goren,
i must call into account your attacking Hal on the morning of a storm that threatened but whimpered away. Thank God! to hear you disparaging Hal like you did and making nasty and personal references to the person you think he married even if a joke is despicable behaviour from you. why dont you do like Dorian and whimper away please.
Just want Mia to THINK…the BILLION DOLLARS in VAT and other TAXES..belonging to the PEOPLE that both she and DLP ALLOWED HER FRIENDS/BRIBERS and FAMILY TO TIEF…which WAS NOT HERS to WRITE OFF or theirs to TIEF…..will be needed, if not now and that money is NEEDED NOW …then SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE…particularly if there is some DISASTER…..let her REMEMBER THAT.
Storms and hurricanes come every year.
Black Bajans should not want to hear anything from this government, especially if they are PRETENDING to be saviors.
Thank God that this storm caused no damages or injuries in Bim. i must say the Govt performed as any Govt should in the face of a possible crisis. this was tailored made for MAM. she loves these incidents and as usual she presented and did well.
Long way to go in the hurricane season so i hope we will continue to prepare like this. like David said maybe we should try to shop for supplies and get petrol earlier to stop the traffic gridlock. and maybe the Govt could view the infrastructure as a critical matter and get to working on it like we have done in preparation for Dorian
@Dr. Lucas
Do we see same in Miami for example when a storm is approaching? There was a sense of urgency this time around the blogmaster has not witnessed. Obviously there are areas we will need to improve next time around.
Just want to say since there was no major significant effects from the hurricane it is premature to judge govt performance after all there are still areas without water which needs to be corrected and gullies which need to be cleaned
GovtCant once again used hot and sweaty policies in the height of hurricane season
@ Greene
I don’t care what you think and you could whimper away like Dorian too.
Hal Austin may be your God. He is not mine.
Does he not come here to disparage others?
Does he not come here often to insult, attack and be downright rude to contributors? He insulted and was sarcastic to Georgie Porgie and his mother.
Not a word from you about his behaviour.
Many of you on BU seem to be scared of him. You need to take your noses out of his ass and stop sucking up to that pompous idiot.
I don’t care about you or Austin and I stand by my comments.
Wily recalls the present MAGABE Prime minister BERATING THE previous DLP Prime minister for shutting down the country on two occasions for storms that did materialize into anything, MAYBE SHE NOW UNDERSTANDS, highly unlikely though.
Hopefully she now understands its always better to error on the side of SAFETY rather than political grandstanding. Being incharge of a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY is more than pompousetting.
Glad you were spared severe damage. Now you can read Grenvilles FREE expert advice and prepare your homes for the next storm / hurricane.
Next time you go to the supermarket check the expiry dates on corned beef, sardines and tuna.
It may influence your decision to stock a few cans at the beginning of the hurricane season.
If you don’t have to them during the season you can use them after November.
People need the information and they will make their own decisions!!
Luckily, the internet is there.
The pictures are mind boggling but all you really need is the barometric pressure.
Normally 1014.
When you see it get into the 900’s, that’s how you know there may be a problem.
Watch the rate at which it is falling.
… and watch the way the wind is blowing.
Somebody tell Mia next time she wants to stand head and shoulders amongst the poor and peel onions she should take off her Mercedes benz hat and expensive jewelry
Not a good public relations job
@Wily
We need to stop politicizing theee matters as citizens. The politicians do it because it is what they are but we should no better. The storm passes over Barbados and the technicians advised there was a possibility the system would have strengthened. The decision to proceed as we did seems reasonable and was generally well received by the public.
@David who wrote ” there was a possibility the system would have strengthened.”
I thought that was the reason Government shut down the country.
What is the threshold to determine whether the island should be shut down during tropical cyclone activity ?
This is the third time in recent times that a shut down seemed unnecessary.
Is it that the politicians have to be seen to be doing something?
Or that Bajans need to be hand held and told what to do like children ?
@Hants
This is the reason the meteorologist gave at the press briefing last night. The system was fighting dry air which made it difficult to call. Bear in mind we have people at the Miami hurricane center giving forecasts as well.
God is a bajan
@ Robert G.
I agree with you 100 %. But it is a waste of time fighting with that POS. All on BU probably know what a big POS he is. some just choose to close their eyes.
David
Miami always forcasted the storm to become a hurricane AFTER it passed Barbados.
The government made the correct call/preparation !
Didn’t see Wilys comment…
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