How cruisers can assist victims of Irma
by Sail-WorldCruising.com on 9 Sep 2017
Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean SW
Daria Blackwell, the Rear Commodore of the Ocean Cruising Club, reached out and asked for help spreading the word. Firstly, absolutely! Secondly, thank you for asking, as we are always glad to assist. Daria commented, 'We’ve been getting a lot of queries from members and beyond about what they can do to help the victims of Irma. Would you kindly help notify those about the one thing that we’ve identified?'
What it all really comes down to is helping Barbuda, which has no help from a Sovereign nation. Pretty much all of the northern Leewards took a bad hit, but St Barts and St Martin will be receiving aid from France, St Maarten from the Netherlands, the Virgins from the US and UK, but poor Barbuda (part of the independent nation of Antigua and Barbuda) has no such 'mother ship' and Irma’s eye went right over Barbuda, causing unimaginable devastation.
In this
link there are ways to make a donation in cash, locations to drop off goods, and the people actually transporting them there, along with an email address to make contact with in case new avenues also open up. Given that a string of storms looks likely to remain in the greater area, this situation will undoubtedly remain fluid, so please also feel free to make contact with us as well, if you have any material that needs to be broadcast out. We’d love to hear from you via
please email us.
Ultimately, thank you to all who assist in whatever way they can. We are all devastated for their losses. In a recent editorial we commented that perhaps seeing how Far North Queensland has rebuilt after Cyclone Debbie earlier this year could serve as positive reinforcement to help you all get through this. We do hope so, and are very much thinking of you all...
New information 10/9/17: Communications are down in a lot of areas, obviously. The latest info can be found
here Sail-WorldCruising will continue to bring the latest information to you.
One of the saddest things is that Hurricane Jose is now a Category 4 and bearing down on Barbuda, the Caribbean is like a meteorological freeway at present. Thoughts and wishes with all that are there!
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