Tropical Storm Chantal heading to Lesser Antilles

Tropical Storm Chantal was centered about 55 miles northwest of St. Lucia around Tuesday morning, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

|
NASA/AP
This image provided by NASA shows Tropical Storm Chantal on Monday. The fast-moving tropical storm raced toward the small islands of the Lesser Antilles on Tuesday, with residents of St. Lucia shuttering schools and preparing to close the island's two airports as it neared.

Tropical Storm Chantal raced toward the small islands of the Lesser Antilles on Tuesday, with officials in Dominica already reporting heavy winds that ripped off the roofs of several homes.

The storm was centered about 55 miles (85 kilometers) northwest of St. Lucia around 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. The storm had maximum sustained winds 60 mph (95 kph), and was moving west-northwest at 29 mph (46 kph).

"It's getting rough out there," said Conrad Ceasar, an emergency management official for Dominica's southern region. "Some parts of the island are without electricity."

The government cancelled the country's ferry service and closed airports as the storm neared, and National Security Minister Charles Savarin said government offices would close at noon. "Chantal is a serious storm," he said.

No injuries from Chantal have been reported in Dominica, or anywhere else in the region.

Chantal was expected to move over the small islands on the eastern rim of the Caribbean early Tuesday and be near the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, according to the Hurricane Center.

Chantal could be near hurricane strength before it reaches Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both countries are vulnerable to flooding and landslides from storms, but widespread deforestation and ramshackle housing in Haiti mean even moderate rains pose a significant threat.

In St. Lucia's capital of Castries, supermarkets stayed open late Monday as islanders stocked up on emergency supplies including water and batteries.

The government ordered a midday closure of all schools until Wednesday. The director of the local meteorological office warned that parts of the island could potentially be affected by landslides and flooding.

In a national address Monday evening, Prime Minister Kenny Anthony urged people to hunker down at home until the tropical storm passed.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for St. Lucia, Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and the entire coast of the Dominican Republic and the north coast of Haiti.

A tropical storm watch was in effect for Haiti, the Turks and Caicos, the southeastern Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Vieques and Culebra.

In Barbados, officials urged people to stay indoors and tune to radio stations to prepare for Chantal, the Atlantic hurricane season's third named storm.

Subramanyam Chandra, a 47-year-old pharmaceutical businessman from Toronto, Canada, said he hadn't been able to meet with clients as he had planned.

"I knew there was a storm, but I didn't know it would be that serious for me not to be able to work," he said. "The main purpose of this visit was to meet customers face-to-face."

In Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the U.S. Coast Guard urged all waterfront facilities to remove unsecured debris, hazardous material and pollutants from dockside areas. Pleasure craft operators were advised to seek safe harbor and secure their vessels.

Both U.S. territories have already experienced heavy rainfall since June, nearly double the average for that period, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.

The storm was expected to produce rain and strong winds in Puerto Rico, with gusts of up to 60 mph (96 kph) in southern and mountainous areas, according to Roberto Garcia, director of the National Weather Service on the island of 3.7 million inhabitants. Chantal was expected to pass more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Puerto Rico early Wednesday.

Municipalities along Puerto Rico's southern and southwest regions will shutter government offices at noon on Tuesday, according to the island's emergency management agency. Authorities also closed the popular El Yunque rain forest near the northeast coast until further notice.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tropical Storm Chantal heading to Lesser Antilles
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0709/Tropical-Storm-Chantal-heading-to-Lesser-Antilles
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe